The History Of The Future Of Assistive Trade Workwear

The history of trade workwear has been a history of adaptation and of building clothes and equipment that keep workers as safe as possible irrespective of trade without being more bulking and confining than they need to be.

These types of innovations have given workers ripstop trousers that stop someone from getting tangled in equipment, as well as chainsaw safety clothes, steel toecap boots and hard hats, all of which help to make dangerous work less reckless.

However, for over a century, a concept has been evolving that was set to be the future of human labour from a wildly ambitious piece of technological fiction to the cusp of reality.

The exoskeleton has been proposed as the ultimate way of reducing injury, increasing productivity and eradicating the type of physical fatigue that can lead to injuries and mistakes.

There are a few powered exoskeletons that have found use in the medical industry, and every few years it looks like they are on the cusp of breaking through into the industrial world.

Here is why they have gotten so close, but also why they have not made it yet.

The Limits Of Machine And Humanity

In 1890, engineer Nicholas Yagin patented a system that used compressed gases stored in a rear tank to help assist human power with additional force.

A similar system to this was proposed in 1917 and patented in 1919, replacing the compressed gas with a backpack-mounted steam engine that whilst fascinating in an H.G. Wells science fiction way, seemed almost impossible to physically make.

The first actual attempt to make a powered exoskeleton beyond the pages of imaginative futurists was the Hardiman programme, which was a General Electric prototype project that merely looked like it had been lifted from a science fiction novel.

It worked through a combination of electrical servos and hydraulics and was theoretically so powerful that it could make lifting 110kg feel like lifting 4.5kg, literally making the wearer 25 times stronger.

However, despite this promise, it was not in any reasonable sense a practical industrial solution. It weighed more than a car at 680kg and because it consisted of a suit connected to another suit, it was painfully slow when it worked at all, capable of moving at just under 2 mph.

The worst part of all, however, was a devastating bug when moving both legs at once that caused the machine to move violently and uncontrollably, effectively removing any chance that a system that dangerous would ever see practical use.

All of these issues in some form have formed part of the reason why exoskeletons have not seen wide use.

The weight was caused by a reliance on heavy materials such as steel, which requires more powerful servos and actuators to function. This in turn often makes them heavier, and alongside the power supply which also can be bulky leads to the issue that an exoskeleton can be too bulky to move itself.

There is also the issue of whether exoskeletons will evolve enough to see use before automation starts to become a regular fixture in logistics and other industries.