Breaking Down the Exoskeleton: From Sci-Fi Fantasy to Real-World Impact

This is a segment from an interview with the Exoskeleton Report’s Borislav “Bobby“ Marinov on what are exoskeletons, exosuits, and wearable robotics devices, how science fiction has influenced them, and what can these wearable contraptions realistically do for us now? Video by: Special thanks to the Wearable Robotics Association, which paid for the professional editing of this clip. Transcript: Exoskeletons are the coming physical Revolution! So an exoskeleton is a wearable device that’s completely independent like a backpack that stays on you and it provides some sort of a physical assistance or resistance between one or more joints of the human body. The theory behind exoskeletons is more than 120 years old at this point there are patents that go way back. Where exoskeletons are used right now is primarily manufacturing, anything that has repetitive tasks in a controlled environment and similarly in physical rehabilitation settings where again you have a controlled environment where you’re trying to get people to repeat the same motion over and over again. You’re mixing business with psychology with engineering and with biome mechanics with a touch of anthropology, history, and sociology, and you’re trying to combine all of that and call it the exoskeleton industry and or exoskeleton market. That’s tough. That is that is difficult to absorb and fundamentally that makes this field so challenging that this is interdisciplinary. There’s no question that fantasy, including Hollywood movies and books, always drives innovation, so it’s a double wedge thought on the one hand you want to have fantasy devices that really challenge human imagination, but on the other hand then you have to explain what is real and what is possible the best way to think of it. [For example] if you’ve seen vehicles only in James Bond movies or Fast and the Furious franchise, you expect them to fly, you expect them to go into space, shoot missiles, and that is not what real vehicles and real cars are capable of doing. Similarly, with exoskeleton technology, we’ve seen exoskeletons that fly exoskeletons that provide superhuman strength or bounce off bullets and laser beams, and that is not what the technology will be able to do for decades to come, but it doesn’t mean that they’re useless. Exoskeletons can change the world. Exoskeletons can change how we perceive work and aging and physical rehabilitation, but none of this is going to happen if people don’t know that they exist, and [people need to discover that] the technology is here, and it extends beyond science fiction, and that’s what the exoskeleton report is trying to change. Potentially useful links: Videography: Exoskeleton Report: Wearable Robotics Association: