14 DAY TRIAL // The idea of a robotic exoskeleton that can help augment our own, natural capabilities is a constantly recurring one in fiction, so it's no surprise that there is always someone working on a real-life implementation. The latest comes from engineering students at the University of Pennsylvania.
Their project, called Titan Arm, is made for ordinary people who don't have any more strength in them than the average man.
It will let them lift things they would normally have too much trouble picking up, or holding up for extended periods. Useful for moving furniture when changing flats if nothing else.
In simple terms, it is a battery-powered arm brace attached to a backpack where the control hardware is located.
From an objective point of view, the extra weight that the Titan Arm lets you lift, 40 pounds / 18.14 kilos, isn't all that massive. A moderately fit man is capable of that and more.
Nevertheless, that is still the extra weight allowed, so your physical prowess will increase no matter how strong you already are.
Besides, it's not like a single arm would be able to let you lift mountains even if it did have the necessary strength, because the rest of your skeleton and muscle structure wouldn't withstand it.
What's more, the students were inspired by "wearable robots" that allow disabled people full or partial mobility again.
"When we started talking to physical therapists and prospective users, or people who have gone through these types of injuries, we just kept on getting more and more motivated," said team member Nick Parrotta, now in graduate school at the university.
Maybe the engineering students will move on to a full exoskeleton though, seeing as how the Titan Arm earned them $75,000 / €54,380 in prize money.
"They built something that people can relate to," said Robert Carpick, chairman of Penn's mechanical engineering department.
"And of course it appeals clearly to what we've all seen in so many science-fiction movies of superhuman strength being endowed by an exoskeleton."
