#HTE

Move Over Boston Dynamics: Mech Cyborgs Are Working At Lowe’s

Did you know that Lowe’s had a robotic innovation lab? Well you’ve been missing out. While we’ve been hand wringing over creepy new cyberdogs and oddly graceful rollerskaters Lowe’s has calmly been rolling out a robot exosuit for its human employees. 

The Lowe’s Innovation Lab started its human+ journey with the goal of assisting workers whose work requires tiring heavy lifting. In areas of the store focused on deliveries and loading employees can spend around 90% of their time doing heavy lifting. The lab called in the wearable tech knowledge of Alan Asbeck, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering, and enlisted his team in designing an assistive solution. 

The Virginia Tech team, made up of four undergraduate and four graduate students, studied body mechanics and materials properties via the school’s assistive robotics lab. Their work developed a system that reduced a wearer’s effective lifting load to that of the user’s normal body weight. This kind of boost makes safely and comfortably picking up concrete, paint buckets, lumber and furniture a good deal easier. 

Four of the resulting prototypes are currently in use on the floor of the Christiansburg, VA Lowe’s store, where employees are testing their limits and strength. 

The design is a lightweight blend of hard, soft, rigid and flexible elements, coming together in a unit that looks like a hiking pack with leg bands and a longbow strapped to the back. The body-facing attachments are soft textile, and lift-assisting spring parts are carbon fiber. 

As the wearer bends over to pick up a heavy or large object, the rods in the carbon fiber “spine” flex, storing potential energy that then wants to spring back into shape, assisting the user in straightening back up. 

In academic research “soft robotics” tends to cover a different type of (more theoretically useful) functions, but this mix of high and low tech puts a human face on how soft material robotics can enter human spaces. The exosuit’s ability to integrate human strength and mechanical assistance is a promising look at where our mecha fantasies might get real in the near future. And hey, even if the suit’s function is as mundane as helping load lumber into your minivan, it’s much more inviting than an unstoppable robodog.