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The New Hard Hat

Homayoon Kazerooni, a professor of mechanical engineering at University of California, Berkeley and the head of its robotics lab, says the future of exoskeletons is on the factory floor. That means they have to be cheap. "You can't make a $135,000 machine and put it on an assembly line," he says, referring to Ekso's price tag.



Kazerooni was a cofounder of Berkeley Bionics but has since returned to the lab, where he has created a still-unnamed exoskeleton that costs just $15,000. "The one we have is so light that you can wear it under your clothing," he says, adding that a major Japanese manufacturer wants a few of his low-powered exoskeletons in its factories by early 2014.



In similar vein, the Navy is testing an unpowered MANTIS Human Augmentation System for maintenance work. That exoskeleton is paired up with an Equipois zeroG arm to aid workers who don't have to walk around much but do have to lift heavy tools, such as grinders.



Lockheed Martin, working with the Navy on MANTIS, argues that its frame increases worker productivity by 70 percent. But Kazerooni says it's just a HULC stripped of its actuators and balanced with added weight on its back. "It's really Philistine," he sniffs.



What factory workers, especially older ones, need is something that supports them even when tightening light screws, he says. "It's not the weight that leads to injury; it's bending their back, their posture," he says.



