
Hardiman I Exoskeleton - vmorgulis
http://cyberneticzoo.com/man-amplifiers/1966-69-g-e-hardiman-i-ralph-mosher-american/
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fernly
Made me think of Heinlein's story "Waldo" [1] which featured mechanical
manipulators controlled by motions of the operator's hand and fingers. I
thought, oho, this is where Heinlein got the idea! But no! "Waldo" was
published in 1942. Perhaps inspiration ran the other way.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_\(short_story\))

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grkvlt
Ah, I had always assumed Waldo was an acronym or initialism of some kind;
checking wikipedia shows they are named after the Heinlein story you mention!

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gene-h
Part of the problem was(and still is) that it didn't have very many good use
cases. For the problem of moving heavy stuff around a forklifts, cranes, and
carts performed much better. Not to mention the potential for serious injury
to the user if they make a mistake or fall over.

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ibnroberttuta
An interesting thing to note WRT serious applications for exoskeletons is that
they arguably offer greater potential as safety devices in the workplaces,
essentially as a means to stop workers from over straining themselves, and
also prevent repeated strain injuries.

I think realistically, heavy stuff will always be relegated to heavy machines.
It'd be impractical in many cases to do otherwise. But to say that
exoskeletons lack applications is a bit foolhardy (preventing workplace injury
is a huge field waiting to be disrupted, for example).

Physical augmentation (via robotics) shouldn't just mean improving the
physical condition, but also maintaining and promoting a healthy physical
condition. This isn't something that is very well understood in the
marketplace (both in the 60's, but also today). The biggest barrier for
exoskeletons are still the exoskeletons themselves. I believe that until this
idea is understood and reflected in the designs and implementation of
exoskeletons, no progress will be made (in the field, and the market).
Hopefully, this will soon change.

Disclosure: Work in the field (although currently for physically disabled
patients, and not announced in the public domain).

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rebootthesystem
Over the last 9 months I have gained a new perspective on the matter of
lifting heavy things. I decided to take weight lifting seriously, hired a
coach and went for it. I am now dead-lifting 200 lbs (90 Kg) and squatting the
same. If you saw me walking down yhe street you'd have no idea. By the end of
the year I should be at 315 for the deadlift.

Before doing this I never imagined someone could look "normal" and move this
much weight. I thought this was the domain of guys with huge muscles.

Anyhow, a long way to say that workplace injury could probably be averted with
training.

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eru
90kg is not that heavy for a squat or deadlift. You need hardly any (visible)
muscles for that (unless you are a very small woman).

I hope you keep up your progress! There's lots of it left.

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StavrosK
As someone who got to a 90kg squat (and 100kg deadlift) in three months while
still having the skinniest legs possible, I am amazed at how efficient muscles
are while being tethered at the very end of a 1 meter lever.

I'm pretty sure that our quadriceps could lift a one-ton weight, if attached
to it, if only a few cm. That's amazing to me.

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goldenkey
The concept is as you hint, very much one of continued leverage to prevent
reverse movement with constant micro gains in forward distance.

[https://youtu.be/0kFmbrRJq4w](https://youtu.be/0kFmbrRJq4w)

Very much a parallel process with the same kind of force multiplication as any
gear ratio mechanical advantage. Quite marvelous what the simple ability to
"stick" can be translated into. Tremendous static holds equals tremendous
kinetic force :-)

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mooneater
Why would they design it such that the human hand goes into the mechanized
hand? Because then if something causes failure, say by lifting something too
heavy, the human hand is also injured. I would want to see a design that keeps
the human operator safe. Same comment on many existing exoskeleton designs.

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stickfigure
I was going to write pretty much the same thing. How comfortable would any of
us be reaching our arms deep into a large piece of operating hydraulic
machinery? It would take only a small bug to contort your arm into a position
that your bones won't allow, and anything capable of lifting 1.5 tonnes can
easily rip your arm off. I wouldn't want to test drive v1.0 of the aliens
power loader. Or any other version that ends with ".0"

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YeGoblynQueenne
I see your powered exoskeleton, and raise you a walking truck:

[http://www.educatedearth.net/video.php?id=5000](http://www.educatedearth.net/video.php?id=5000)

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richforrester
Looking at this, the one thing I see is a person "fighting" a machine that's
encapsulating them.

If we're going to interpret and strengthen moves we make, it might be smarter
and safer to leave the interpretation of movement _out_ of the suit. So wear a
light, easy-to change into/out of suit with sensors, that controls a machine
in front of you. Also saves space as you won't have to make space for a pesky,
fleshy, squishy human.

(Just thinking out loud here)

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nsxwolf
This is definitely an application for VR. You are rigged up in a room
somewhere, and you become a gigantic robot building a ship or a bridge or
something elsewhere.

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ekianjo
Wait, was the Aliens' exoskeleton used by Ripley and other Marines based on
that prototype ? It looks very similar in some of the concept art. See:
[http://www.mwctoys.com/images/review_loader_1.jpg](http://www.mwctoys.com/images/review_loader_1.jpg)

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stcredzero
Years before Sarcos corporation got bought, they had working haptic whole-arm
interfaces attached to outsized hydraulic arms. There used to be Real video
format files on their site of things like a teleoperated giant arm casually
holding an anvil like it was a beer mug.

There was webpage of historical haptics research up somewhere. They've had
research hardware since the 70's. I remember one discussion at the Houston
hackerspace, where such devices were falsely "debunked" based on
bandwidth/processing requirements. {facepalm}

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shostack
All I can think of when seeing this is that the animated gif looks exactly
like a Power Fist from Warhammer 40k, and that the rest of this looks like
some of the original e-frames from Exo-Squad when they show the scenes of how
e-frames first originated.

Powered body suits can't come fast enough in my opinion. Outside of war, there
are just so many uses for enhanced strength and the sheer flexibility
something like that allows for tools, dexterity, working with electrical or
extreme temperatures, etc.

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Aelinsaar
I can wait for the kinks to be worked out, so that a software error doesn't
result in my arm being yanked out of its socket.

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orjan
That "Walking Truck" is very similar to Big Dog, at least in appearance.

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Sami_Lehtinen
[an error occurred while processing this directive] - Server getting
overloaded? - A backup copy:
[https://archive.is/HhXbI](https://archive.is/HhXbI)

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chx
Exoskeletons will be huge, huge, huge as the baby boomer generation get older
and more frail. This is why Japan is already far ahead in this.

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kensai
Would definitely not comb my hair or scratch my back with that thing... :p

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teddyh
Or pick your nose:

[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-03-14](http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-03-14)

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martin-adams
That made me laugh

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robschia
The HN hug of death strikes again

