REAL-​​LIFE EXOSKELETONS EMERGE

I’ve got an itty-​​bitty arti­cle in tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine, on real-​​life exoskele­tons. You can read it here. But, to give you guys a win­dow into how the edit­ing process works, I thought I’d show you my first draft. It’s a bit more florid, and less clear, than what finally appeared in print.

It was just a few steps, clunky and delib­er­ate, like a toddler’s wad­dle. But to a far-​​flung group of engi­neers, sol­diers, and sci­ence fic­tion fans, these strides, on a tread­mill inside a University of California, Berkeley lab­o­ra­tory, couldn’t have been more pro­found. Here was a man, walk­ing nat­u­rally, more or less, with the help of a set of mechan­i­cal mus­cles wrapped around his legs a real-​​life exoskele­ton.
The ur-​​geek author Robert Heinlein first dreamed up the idea of sol­diers step­ping into suits of pow­ered armor, to make them stronger and faster, in his 1959 clas­sic Starship Troopers. Sigourney Weaver cemented the exoskele­ton in the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness in 1986, when she donned a metal­lic over-​​suit in Aliens, and kicked some slimy, inter­stel­lar ass.
In the real world, though, researchers strug­gled to repli­cate Sigourney’s hero­ics. The exoskele­tons they built were too stiff, too unnat­ural in their gait. Engineers would try to have them move as much like a human as pos­si­ble. It never seemed to work.
The prob­lem was that researchers were try­ing too hard, Berkeley engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sor Homayoon Kazerooni finally real­ized. When peo­ple walk, they make an end­less series of uncon­scious cal­cu­la­tions and cor­rec­tions to keep their stride. It’s way too com­pli­cated a task for machines to han­dle. So instead of pre-​​programming the exoskeleton’s every step, Kazerooni decided to let go. He set his exoskele­ton up with a set of 40 sen­sors, and let it fol­low wher­ever the per­son inside wanted to wan­der.
The result, called BLEEX (short for “Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton”) is a set of mod­i­fied com­bat boots, attached to what look like metal braces that snake up the sides of the legs. Those con­nect with a tough plas­tic vest and back­pack, where the exoskeleton’s brain a Pentium-​​5 equiv­a­lent proces­sor — sits.
About 70 pounds of stuff can be crammed into the pack. But that load only feels like five pounds or so, once the exoskele­ton is turned on; the mechan­i­cal legs pick up the rest. (BLEEX 2, slated for June, should be able to carry 150 pounds, and amble at a four mile-​​per-​​hour clip.) The Pentagon which has been fund­ing much of Kazerooni’s research wants the machine to ease the bur­den on G.I.s, who rou­tinely haul more that a hun­dred pounds of gear into bat­tle.
But Kazerooni sees his exoskele­ton as more than just a “war machine.” The mechan­i­cal legs might some­day help the elderly get around, he hopes. Replacing grandma’s walker is a long way from Aliens. But at least it’s real.

December 11th, 2004 | Armor | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.