Powered Exoskeletons
Powered Exoskeletons
HAL5 - Cyberdrine
The Future is Bionic…
I have always fascinated about the powers of the Bionic man. Bionic man is a very wide term whose pinnacle would be to create an artificial being. Today research in that area is progressing – an example of that is the stem cell. But talking about that would be science-fiction. So lets talk about something more real.
…so what about the present?
Have you seen science fiction movies like Avatar, G.I Joe or Iron Man? They wear a suit that
- enable them to lift extremely heavy objects
- run at great speeds, and even fly!
- among other things – Iron Man also had a power source in the suit that kept him alive but that doesn’t interest us! 😉
Do you think such things could really exist, today? Yes, it happened last year at IIT. I was amazed when I saw people wearing a mechanical exoskeleton and jumping over a entire car in a single leap! During Techfest 2009 a team of performers called “3Run” from UK displayed a stunning Parkour performance! Two of them were wearing exoskeletons (3Run doesn’t mention this on their website) which I believe looks just like the ones produced by PowerSkip, a German company.
Read More: A report on Artificial Exoskeletons [PDF]
TODO: Engineering of Powered Exoskeletons
Elixir Report – Techfest 2010
A report on Elixir:
http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/prayaas/elixir/
Reviewed:
- User Friendly Helmet
- LivoSensor
- MultiAccess Incubator
User Friendly Helmet
Team: NIT Surat
Addressed Needs:
- Heat-strokes are common for warm indian climates. Cited heat discomfort as the primary cause of people not wearing driving helmets.
- Hence reducing safety of drivers and co-passengers.
- Bulky, inconvineant to carry around everywhere.
- Inexpensive solution to an important problem at Rs. 150/- extra cost.
Strong Points / USP:
- Comfortable “joyous ride”
- Cooling pad installed:
- Cooled externally via refrigration
- lasts 2-3hrs.
- Foldable, hence portable.
- About 1/3rd of original size when folded.
- Sweat absorbing layer; Washable
Weak points / Aspirations and Gaps:
- Modular design – sleek but makes it very vulnerable to impact damage. Hence putting the user at hazzordus risk. Defeats the primary purpose of safety.
- No Impact Testing of equipment was performed.
- Clips, screws etc. inconvineant and time-consuming to remove/fold and install back again while.
- Removable parts not a good design idea. Prone to loss.
- No temprature controller proposed in the design. I think resonable maintenance of temprature is essential. Too cold/uncontrolled temprature might be more damaging than comforting.
Exploring New Ways 
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