Welcome and on this video we are doing a product review for the Ekso Bionic Exoskeleton Suit. So if you want to see how the Ekso is getting people up from paralyzed to walk again, then stay tuned.
Hi guys! I’m Philip English from robophil.com. Now on this video, we are looking into the Ekso Bionics Exoskeleton Robot Suit.
Ekso is a wearable exoskeleton that can augment a person’s physical capabilities.
The company Ekso Bionics, originally Berkeley Bionics, was founded in Berkeley in California in 2005.
It’s robots are for medical rehabilitation. For people who are paralyzed or weakness in standing up or walking.
The company have two offices. One in California, serving america and one in London for the european branch.
The Ekso suit is now used in 14 rehabilitation centers around the world and has helped people take over 1 million steps.
The Ekso GT robotic exoskeleton represents a fundamentally new paradigm in gait training and neurorehabilitation by augmenting not only the individual’s strength, but the therapist’s ability to with their patients.
Walking is achieved by the user’s weight shifts to activate sensors in the device which initiate the steps. Battery-powered motors drive the legs, replacing deficient neuromuscular functions. It has been designed for the needs of busy therapists treating a wide range of patients in a single day. The suit is strapped over the users´ clothing with easy adjustments to transition between patients in as little as five minutes.
To go through the specs,
The height of the Ekso is 167 centimeters, maximum heigh. With a minimum heig of 145.
The length of it is 35.6 centimeters and the width is 54.6 centimeters.
The weight of the Ekso is 22.7 kilos. It’s got a top speed of 1 mile per hour.
And it has more than 30 sensors to measure the position, force and other variables.
It’s got electro-mechanical actuator located at the knees and hips.
A swappable lithium-polymer battery. It’s got an on-board computer system DSP. And it is custom C coded.
The ekso has 6 degrees of freedom with 4 actuators and 2 passive. The material is an advanced aluminum and composite structure.
The status of the Ekso is it is ongoing development. Ongoing improvement. And the cost is 130,000 dollars including Ekso plus support and training program.
The Ekso comes with a whole host of different packages that they wrote in a load. It comes with four different individual step process.
First Step. a physical therapist actuates steps with a button push. The user progresses from sit to stand and using a walker to walking with crutches, often in their first session. Walking is achieved by the user’s weight shifts to activate sensors in the device which initiate the steps. Battery-powered motors drive the legs, replacing deficient neuromuscular functions.
The next step is the Active Step. This is where the user takes control of actuating their steps via buttons on the crutches or walker. So they take control over the actual button presses. So this is the number 2.
The third one is the ProStep. The user achieves the next step by moving their hips forward and shifting them laterally. Ekso recognizes that the users is in the correction position and steps for them.
And the last one is the Prostep Plus. So this is where the steps are triggered by the user’s weight shift PLUS the initiation of forward leg movement.
So the four different types of steps are what you get with Ekso.
So with the Ekso, it fits with many types of different industries.
We have the military industry. So the ground soldiers, deport and logistics and the manufacturing. Industrial industry, we can see it used in the construction site, the first spunts, again manufacturer moving. In the consumer industry, obviously the elderly and outdoor sports or extreme athletes can be using these. And health, where we are commercializing into rehabilitation taking centers at homes.
So we have already seen the major benefits of the Ekso skeleton. In the manufacturing industries where it has been tested out via case studies.
So we have seen a 50 percent reduction or loss of time with someone who has one of those Ekso skeleton arms. The quality of the work is better because the person feels like he’s got reduced effort so he can just stand up there and gets less tired and he can focus on the quality alot more.
The other benefits were obviously for health and safety. 5.6(million) americans have work related back pains so they receive the extra support there. They sort of reduce the back pain. The actual cost of these is about 3000 dollars a year for people with back pains. The annual cost for people who have loss wages and loss productivity due to back pain is about 50 million dollars a year.
So the future of the Ekso Suit and the future of the Ekso skeletons. It has already been predicted that the projected market will be around 1.9 billion by the year of 2020 for the Ekso skeleton suit.
They have already created 3000 patients walking so hopefully, by that time, we are looking at 30 000, 300 000 or maybe into the million-pound mark.
The way we are going to do this is we are going to crack the code. We are going to crack the code of more technology going into Ekso suit to make them more reliable and obviously have lower prize. The best way to do this is to have manufacturing partnerships, which allows coverage of design teams to work in the next leap in technology.
Well the obviously the main thing is to dramatically lower the manufacturing cost and mass produce these suits so they can be alot cheaper and available for everyone.
Thanks guys. That is the product review of the Ekso, Exoskeleton suit.
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Exoskeleton Suit Product Review YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q8ELtJZpQsE
Philip English: https://philipenglish.com
Sponsor: Robot Center: http://www.robotcenter.co.uk
