Made-in-B.C. exoskeletons stepping up to meet market demand – BC News

Photograph: Rob Kruyt

Human in Movement Robotics CEO Siamak Arzanpour showcases one of many exoskeletons developed by his Vancouver firm 

Signal a contract to supply the Division of Nationwide Defence (DND) with exoskeletons and one would possibly presume troopers will quickly be donning the wearable robotic apparatuses within the battlefield.

“It’s not for sending extra troopers to warfare,” stated Siamak Arzanpour, CEO of a Vancouver-based robotics agency that landed a $663,000 contract with the DND in September.

After a smooth chuckle, Arzanpour explains the applying for his firm’s exoskeletons is well being care.

Human in Movement Robotics Inc. is ready to ship a pair of its lower-limb exoskeletons, often called XoMotion, to a hospital on Prince Edward Island to see if the robotic items may help veterans with movement disabilities with their bodily rehabilitation.

His robotics agency focuses on two variations of exoskeletons, which may run on batteries for about 4 hours and weigh in at 70 kilograms. One kind helps folks with bodily rehabilitation, similar to these aforementioned veterans, and one other helps folks in wheelchairs stroll with out help.

And whereas the corporate has no quick plans to equip troopers for the battlefield, Arzanpour sees big-time market potential behind deploying his firm’s exoskeletons for greater than solely health-care functions.

“We will construct a considerably lighter model of the exoskeleton for [outer] house software,” he stated, referring to challenges spacefarers face with regards to muscle atrophy in zero gravity.

This lighter model of the exoskeleton is also utilized to aged residents who want help strolling and even athletes trying to prepare their our bodies utilizing new methods.

Human in Movement is just not the one B.C. robotics agency banking available on the market potential behind exoskeletons.

Vancouver-based Bionic Energy Inc.’s leg-mounted Agilik exoskeletons can be utilized by youngsters who’ve problem strolling resulting from crouch gait, an irregular strolling sample generally present in folks with cerebral palsy. However the firm’s expertise has additionally caught the eye of the U.S. Workplace of the Secretary of Protection, which signed a US$1.25 million contract with Bionic Energy to field-test its Amplify exoskeletons designed for troopers.

These latter exoskeletons are anticipated to assist troopers with carrying tools by decreasing the quantity of weight they bear whereas strolling.

In the meantime, Langley’s Genesis Robotics has developed what it calls a LiveDrive actuator – the a part of a robotic that permits it to maneuver – to be used with exoskeletons. Most actuators in robotics are comparatively cumbersome electrical motors, requiring quite a lot of complicated elements that may inflate the robotic’s weight and the expense.

Genesis Robotics has developed the LiveDrive actuator to amplify magnetic forces and creating a construction that permits it to resist excessive forces. The result’s a tool that’s half as costly as standard actuators and lighter and safer to function facet by facet with people, in keeping with the corporate.

Genesis Robotics has patented quite a lot of reference designs, similar to an exoskeleton that may help folks with disabilities, and strolling robots that may assist carry objects for the aged, to display to the trade what the LiveDrive is able to.

In 2018, U.S.-based Koch Engineered Options took a controlling curiosity within the Canadian agency, which introduced in June that it was launching an workplace in Frankfurt, Germany, because it ramps up commercialization.

The market potential for exoskeletons, which have been getting lighter and cheaper to supply, is ready to surge within the coming decade, in keeping with forecasts from Acumen Analysis and Consulting.

Whereas the market was price US$493 million in 2021, it’s anticipated to increase to US$13.9 billion by 2030.

“Rising purposes throughout a variety of industries, an growing older workforce, technological developments, and increasing attain within the army and health-care industries are driving development within the worldwide exoskeletons market worth,” Acumen’s August 2022 report concluded. “These outfits are projected to be extensively utilized in health-care programs and to learn from a rise within the variety of rehabilitation clinics. The event of energetic and partially passive expertise is without doubt one of the main components influencing the necessity for exoskeletons market.”

In the meantime, Arzanpour stated one of many largest challenges the trade wants to beat is among the mobility points affecting exoskeletons.

“Virtually all of them can solely assist folks to face up and stroll ahead,” he stated. “Our exoskeleton can assist all of the complicated motions that the able-bodied can do. For instance, strolling ahead at totally different speeds, sidestepping, backwards stepping, turning, [stepping up] stairs, crouching. All of those are totally different, complicated motions [that] are supported by our exoskeleton.”