The company is also unveiling an ergonomics-monitoring safety vest:
German Bionic, the robotic exoskeleton startup behind the Cray X, will be showing off two new posture-protecting products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this week. The Apogee is the company's latest and lightest powered exosuit built for commercial and industrial use while the Smart SafetyVest will "bring ergonomic monitoring and protection to every worker," per a Monday release.
The Apogee builds from the lessons learned in developing the Cray X, resulting in German Bionic's lightest exosuit to date. Despite the litheness, it can offset up to 66 pounds of load to the user's lower back per lifting motion and offers active walking assistance to reduce fatigue. The SafetyVest, on the other hand, doesn't actively help the user pick up heavy stuff but it does monitor their movements and body positioning as they work and offers "data-based, personalized ergonomic insights, as well as assessments and recommended actions."
Both the Apogee and SafetyVest rely on the German Bionic IO architecture to collect, monitor, analyze and report the user's ergonomic data back to them. This is done typically either through the onboard display or via audible alerts when the user is actively making unsafe movements.
Related: Octopus Tentacle Serves as Inspiration for Gripper
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German industrial automation company Festo has come up with a bionic gripper, OctopusGripper. The company's focus areas include pneumatic, servo-pneumatic and electric automation technology and the Octopus Gripper is certainly drawing attention in the tech press.
The name is quite apt. The gripper has been modeled on an octopus tentacle. Its advantage lies in its ability to grip softly but securely. What is more, the OctopusGripper can pick up and hold a variety of different shapes. A video shows it taking canister-shaped objects, a ball, plastic water bottle and glass successfully.
[...] Well, not to be confused with the real creature with its water-based muscle, this is a Festo design where, as Samantha Cole in Motherboard explained, "compressed air bends the robot tentacle and controls its pliability. A combination of passive and vacuum-powered suction cups provides grip."
The soft silicone structure is pneumatically controlled. With compressed air applied, the tentacle bends inwards and wraps around an item. The team followed the natural model to come up with their design: two rows of suction cups are on the inside of the tentacle—small suction cups and larger suction cups.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Funny) by hendrikboom on Thursday January 05, @11:48PM
"It's the wrong trousers, Grommit!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08, @12:26PM