technologies for helping post-stroke patients lift their ankles. One is Japanese-based Yaskawa, which also has an ankle robot to help stroke patients. Krebs also started a new company called 4Motion Robotics, which will be designing an anklebot and other exoskeletal products.

Increased use of exoskeletons is also being driven by re-shoring, the bringing back of manufacturing jobs to the U.S. from offshore, notes Whitton. Exoskeletons can be beneficial in helping workers avoid injuries and stay on the job longer because they “ amplify human performance,” which results in a productivity gain.

“There is an acute labor shortage
in industrial jobs here; there is a low
participation rate and a lot of people
are feeling the pinch and [companies
are] struggling to grow and raise pro-
ductivity due to a lack of workers and
also an aging workforce.” Already,
people are retiring later, he noted, “so
in a sense, this is a way of extending
human life and extending their time
in the labor force.”
Couple those factors with injuries
on construction sites and mining op-
erations, and you can understand why
exoskeletons are being eyed as a way to
extend the life of the worker, because
they can amplify performance.

Take, for example, a Milwaukee Grinder, a power tool mainly used to grind metal in discrete manufacturing, and a piece of equipment that can weigh 15 lbs. or more, Whitton says. An exoskeleton with a third zero-gravity arm could pick it up without requiring any exertion on the part of a worker, he says.

That appeals to home improvement chain Lowe’s, which tested exosuits in April 2017 at its Christiansburg, VA, location, in partnership with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). “We gathered feedback from the test and are now using the data to help define the next phase of the program,” says a Lowe’s spokesman, who declined to provide further details.

Ford Motor Co. is also testing at one of its assembly plants a wearable exoskeleton called EksoVest to help reduce shoulder injury, which is an issue in assembly line work.

The flip side of exoskeletons, how-
ever, is that it could take a while for
a company to recoup its initial in-
vestment because they are extremely
expensive right now, notes Whitton.
An upper-body exoskeleton designed
to amplify human performance runs
about $30,000, he says, “but the price
is coming down, and eventually these
technologies will be commoditized.”
Additionally, he anticipates the cost
of an exoskeleton will shift from hard-
ware to software and robotics as a
service with a monthly subscription
model; this, he believes, will lower the
barrier to adoption.
Jerryll Noorden, a Connecticut-
based real estate investor, is also
bullish on exoskeletons. Prior to real
estate, Noorden was the mechani-
cal lead engineer on the National
Aeronautics and Space Administra-
tion (NASA) X1 Exoskeleton, as well
as working at the Florida Institute
for Human & Machine Cognition
(IMHC), a research institution of the
State University System of Florida.
Noorden believes so much in the vi-
ability of exoskeletons that he says
he is planning to donate some of the
proceeds from his business to exo-
skeleton research and development.
While working at IHMC in 2007,
Noorden and others developed a pro-
totype for an exoskeleton, which he
says was “not very successful” because
a motor was required for each joint to
introduce movement. “The stronger
the motor, the bigger it has to be, and
that is the huge issue with motors right
now,” Noorden explains. “The more
power, the bigger the motor, and of
course, it becomes heavier.”
Exoskeletons can be
beneficial in helping
workers avoid injuries
and stay on the job
longer because
they “amplify
human performance,”
which results in
a productivity gain.
ACM
Member
News

HELPING PEOPLE THROUGH
INFORMATION CENTRICITY
“Many of us in
research are
very fortunate
because we get
to do what we
love,” says K.K.
Ramakrishnan,
professor of computer science
and engineering at the
University of California,
Riverside (UC Riverside).
Ramakrishnan’s research
is focused on network
architecture, protocols, and
systems. He is author of more
250 papers, and has 170 patents
issued in his name.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from Bangalore University in India, and his master’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), also in Bangalore.

While at IISc, Ramakrishnan used a computer for the first time, and was attracted to learn more about the computer arena because it was so intuitive.

Computer science was a natural
fit for him, and he earned his
Ph. D. in computer science from
the University of Maryland.
Ramakrishnan began his
professional career at Digital
Equipment Corporation (DEC)
in 1983. He left DEC in 1984
to take a position with AT&T,
where he worked through 2013,
the year he joined the faculty of
UC Riverside.
Currently, Ramakrishnan’s
research is focused on two
areas. The first is using
information centricity for
disaster management, to
deliver more timely, relevant,
useful information to aid first
responders. The second is to
continue making networks
more flexible and agile through
software-based functionality.
Ramakrishnan observes
that networks have become
ubiquitous, and that much of
our life is centered around a
connected world. As a result, he
says, the future lies in making
these networks “more robust,
convenient, and secure.”
—John Delaney