ASTM Exo Technology Center of Excellence

good morning welcome to the nash musculoskeletal health course sector program webinar my name is jack lew the program manager it's my pleasure to introduce today's speaker dr bill blott bill is the director of global exo technology programs and executive director of the astm xo technology center of excellence with astm international dr blott holds a phd in biology from the university of dayton a master of science in engineering from wright state university and a bachelor of mechanical engineering from the george institute of technology formerly he was a scientist with the national institutes of standards and technology and the vice chairman of the astm f-48 exoskeletons and exosuit committee bill spent the past 17 years providing scientific and technical advice to federal agencies first responders and international organizations on topics including exoskeletons critical infrastructure protection cprne detection and first responder equipment he coordinated federal programs that produce over 50 homeland security focused national standards and over 100 reports on first responder equipment bell has received several awards including the us department of commerce gold medal award for heroism bill welcome the floor is yours thanks jack thanks for the warm welcome and seeing all the accolades there that was really kind of you i wanted to thank niosh for allowing me to speak today uh it's really kind of you to allow me to have a little bit of time to talk about the center of excellence and what's going on with that 48 and also special thanks to your director dr howard for being on the center of excellence advisory board so i'm going to give an overview today of the center of excellence an overview also of the activities going on in the astm committee at 48 and we should be able to get through most of this about as jack was saying about 30 40 minutes and then i'm open to questions about both of these areas and hopefully i can help you understand a little bit more about what's going on so let's go ahead so just a little background for those folks may not know about astm astm international was founded about 120 years ago it's a standard development organization it's a industry-driven standards development organization and it's a neutral forum where everybody has a voice and and here's my pitch to you for those folks out there who may not be involved with standards if you want to make an impact nationally and globally and you want to have your voice heard and you want to connect to people all around the globe and experts and stakeholders in your area standards is a great way to do that astm we have about 150 committees and so you know across those committees there's 13 plus thousand standards that have come out over the years and we have members from all around the world 135 countries and we also have the ability to the standards that we produce to designate them as american national standards we do that sometimes when it makes sense most of the time our standards are global international standards and so you can use them anywhere around the world we take a consensus-based approach and which means that everybody gets a voice everybody gets a vote uh and we have a balance on our committees so that one one group doesn't have a greater voice or vote than anybody else ahead to the next slide so i like this this slide a lot because it kind of gives you this this picture of how astm uh helps provide sort of the infrastructure to get from one place to them and it gets you from sort of this technology or research area into the market and this infrastructure helps people to have trust it helps people to have greater access to markets and it smooths the process for industry to move from one sector of innovation into practice and into use out there and now store straight into the center of excellence so we we started talking about the center of excellence uh as part of the f-48 committee uh a few years ago this this idea was sort of um moved around and discussed and we we started thinking how could we really innervate this area and make a difference and you know out of these ideas astm took the step to stand up this center of excellence and the idea behind it is to help people of all ages to pursue a high quality of life and so that's everything from industry to medical to consumer to defense helping people to be to use this technology in a safe and reliable way and that's really what i'm going to try to hit hard on this is that the center of excellence is really about safety and reliability and and and all of that is on this foundation of trust and that's what the standards are going to help us do is build this foundation of trust and so the cog wow yes it is going to be this neutral form where we can discuss very difficult issues like what is an exoskeleton is it a tool is it personal protective equipment is it a medical device maybe the answer is yes to all of those questions or maybe not in certain circumstances but we need a place where we can have those discussions i know that topic in in particular is on the minds of a lot of people around the globe especially around the idea is an exoskeleton ppe so we want to be a home where we can have those discussions and and figure out what's the best way to go and also help by providing guidance and knowledge to the community but to energize and connect portion of the coe is really this idea that we're going to have some resources the resources of astm as far as like you know the infrastructure but also monetary resources to stimulate new standards and education and other efforts to help the community and i'll talk a little bit more later about some of the the funded projects that we're working on right now this is just a snapshot to show you here's a website or where you can find out a little bit more about the center of excellence and as you can see you know front and center is about safety and reliability which should be near and dear to your heart in the eyes this gives us a little bit of background on what's been happening so we stood the center up in october last year we partnered with with niosh but also nist and the army as far as our federal partners and then we have some founding partners through new stone soup which is a conglomerate of companies which has the exoskeleton report and optimum services optimal performance services also it's part of that and so we have a team of people that work in the center right now and looking at how we can help the community and provide better service and so we've been forming up all the different elements to provide things to the community and that includes setting up the advisory board and different subcommittees and building an r d team and so that's that's what's been happening in the last few months and we've been trying to get up to speed so that we can provide different offerings out there just a quick snapshot here of who's on our advisor board i mentioned dr howard before but we have standards executive from dhs bill matson honeydemions who's the fda standard expected david audet from the army ken anderson from toyota north america hugh hair from mit jim miller from sarcos robotics and conor walsh from harvard and then on our innovation research subcommittee we have a host of people from f48 who are representing you know government private industry and and other sectors academia also and and we're that's what we try to do is have a balance of people so that we get uh you know perspectives from all the different voices and parts of the community out there this is a high chart for you just to see you know you need glasses like me you know and this is really just to give you an idea not for you to read all these words on here but give you an idea of the scope of the the r d that's possible in this area is the coe gonna tackle everything on this list probably not things that make sense as far as from a safety and reliability and building market trust yeah we're going to try to see if we can stimulate research in these areas that lead to standards and and and you know just to kind of hit that point when we fund an effort whether it's research or for education we're trying to get something that is a product for the community for the research it's going to come out either with a new standard modify an existing standard or move a work item that's kind of lagging behind because it doesn't have enough data or resources to move it forward and same thing with the education how can we provide some education or guidance that will help the broader community so we're going to tackle things off of this list here to kind of help the community in in the ways where we can the best this just gives you a little bit more specifics about some of the ideas that we're working on most of the stuff over on the left side where it's researching standards these are the type of ideas we've put out there and you'll see we've got a request for proposals out there on the streets which closes this friday on the 15th and these are some of the things that we need help with as you can see a lot of these are test methods we need to be able to test exoskeletons in an objective way so that we can know are they safe are they reliable can they perform can they do the things they they say they do you know all of those types of things you need to answer the the items on the right hand side the education workforce development there's a couple of them highlighted because those activities are either have been done or they're ongoing right now so we've got us doing a paper competition again if you look on our website you can find out about that but that's open i believe it goes through june 19th if i'm not mistaken and it's open to any student in a university around the world and it's a paper about and i've got a little bit more detail later about how to design a safe exoskeleton we did a survey of the astm committee members and we're doing a survey uh which should come out in the next few weeks of exoskeletal producers to find out really what the needs are and how we can best help and we've got a number of other ideas in here to try to help the community and we're going to see if we can pursue some of those over the next several months and years so this is a little bit more detail on the rfp so it's open through the 15th of may we're going to try to do three awards up to about 34k each and we've we've kind of outlined what are the key research questions as we understand them and so how do we design in safety to exo technologies promote safe practices across the community how do we objectively measure all of these things the performance the safety reliability quality all those types of issues proper fit and comfort is a key thing with an exoskeleton you wear this it is it is something that is on you it's not something you just pick up and you can put down you you have it has to be comfortable and it has to be functional and it has to work the way it's supposed to and it needs to stay where it's supposed to stay on your body in order to work properly so that's a key thing with this technology okay sorry just heard a little buzz there the other part of this is how do we determine what is the right place to use an exoskeleton and what process should we used to determine where to use an exoskeleton so that's that's a big question i know a lot of people have worked on that there's been a number of people out in the industry they try to tackle that question when they were employing exoskeletons for different processes you've probably seen in articles about how exoskeletons have been used for overhead work in the automotive type industry and so that's a that's a thing we want to try to help with is how did how do you do that what's a process that everybody could use and then they can modify that process to be more specific to their particular needs but giving them some general guidance will help a lot and and as you probably read when you look at some of the standards out there a lot of this fits in sort of the ergonomics and human factors areas as far as figuring some of that out and then how do we share data so that's always a big question how do you share data how do you move it around across the community and you you know a rising tide floats all boats here and that's what we're going to try to do with this information that's across the community that people have already done a lot of work how can we use that and then as we develop new data and new information how do we best share that and give people access to it and then how do we bring down barriers for business how how do we enable businesses to get their products into a market and for people to be able to trust what the businesses say that their products can and cannot do and that's really a key part of why we do standards is to kind of help with those barriers like that and also you know another key part of this not not said is that you know how do you compete on a global stage how do you have market access globally we want to have standards that can be used anywhere around the world and manufacturers aren't just having to test to a standard in every different country around the world just in order to enter a market we would like that barrier to be as low as possible this is a little information on the student paper competition and exoskeleton producer survey so this new paper goes through june 19th is designing safe exoskeletons and exo suits and there's a bit more detail about uh some of the the uh information on this on the website about how you enter and and and what kind of formats and all of that just like a regular type of rfp and it's open the students enroll full or part time so that's a key part associate undergraduate or graduate and again it's open to any student around the world so if you have a student or a friend who's a student please let them know we'd be happy to receive uh their submissions on that we're going to have a first and second prize a thousand dollars the first prize 500 for the second prize and hopefully we'll be able to have them travel to the next f-48 meeting and present their findings in their paper so that would be wonderful i talked a little bit about the producer survey but what we're trying to understand here is what are the priorities for the producers how can we best help them from a standards perspective with some of these barriers and some of these issues about testing and building trust with uh the performance or the safety of their products and so hopefully that survey will be going out soon i know there's a number of people from the f-48 committees kind of helping um you know develop that and make that into a useful survey and as with all the stuff that we're going to do with the center we're going to try to share that information as widely as possible so you should see that in the coming months so we had our first advisory board in the end of march uh we did that board meeting sort of like this in a virtual sense and it went really well i had good participation and here are some of the the uh we kind of called out some general recommendations about where we can go with the center of excellence and one is uh building a roadmap and and i would welcome niosh's views on some of the areas we can help the best as we're building this roadmap because we think that you know we want to keep a close partnership with niosh and we think you can really help us and guide us as far as some of the areas where we can best help industry uh they also recommended that we don't uh as they say reinvent the wheel you know we don't want to build our own sort of testing systems and and structures and and everything if we don't have to so leverage what other people are already doing and see you know how we can connect those together and get better information out of all of them and then as we're developing how do you test an exoskeleton they recommended looking at a task-based approach and also looking at how you could use i have specific environments but i kind of think of it like use cases how how do you build use cases around that so that that you can reach and have an impact on the greatest number of situations another idea was this idea of review of literature so you know just like with with any other thing as you're developing any kind of guidance document and perhaps a regulation or any other thing you need to do some background research and understand the subject and so this is the same thing that's kind of needed as we're developing the standards we have experts in the area to serve on our committees but they need to know what's the latest information about this area what what do we know and what don't we know and and that was one of the ask here is can the center help with kind of having a review of literature for these different areas that we're tackling the use case scenarios i kind of mentioned and then you know models simulations and similar technologies what does that mean we we have the models that can give you some understanding of what's going in the human body we have some models that give you an understanding of the mechanical forces going on on materials and even some some models that'll help you design new materials that's great the problem is the interface between those two is not really there how do you take a a exoskeleton that has very hard and very soft and electrical mechanical type components and all these things and then look at that interface to the human body and what forces and stresses and other types of things go on between those two things and you look at that in a static in a dynamic type mode so there's there's a lot of work that needs to go on in that area we need a lot of help there all right so this is uh moving on we're going to go to committee f48 and this committee was set up in 2017 so it's not too old but it's quite a bit older than the center of excellence obviously and so this was really born out of we started thinking about uh how do we do this and how do we really get more organized about the idea of standards probably i'll say 2016. so i was at nist at the time working with roger bosselman and a few other people and we were looking at uh you know the exoskeleton area and talking with the us army and others about this and what we did at the time is we at the end of 2016 we pulled together all the different federal agencies and had a a kind of a meeting on exoskeletons like you know what do you guys think we really need to do in this area and and what it what is your thoughts on standards and similar types of things research for this technology and to a t almost every federal agency and organization there said we really do need standards we really need to to do more in this area and that's that was that was very heartening and it was also kind of unique because it's rare you get so many agencies that really say yes we have to do standards on there and so me and roger and others kind of got together and tried to figure out where could we do this and so we talked to a number of standard development organizations including astm and tried to find for the best home to try to stand up this effort and we had a meeting in 2017 early 2017 to kind of bring the community together at international meeting and again got confirmation we need to do this and that was sort of the genesis of the process to develop this standard to be which got stood up in uh late 2017 or fall and so when we when we did this we had to think about how are we going to organize this what's important for the exoskeletons and what are the areas that that it sort of touches and so it came out to be really you know industry of course medical but military emergency responder and consumer also were important areas to sort of consider as where exoskeletons could be and you know in my mind ex skeletons a very horizontal type technology can touch a lot of different areas and and this sort of shows that um you know i'm going to talk a little bit you know there's another meeting later this week they're going to talk a bit about passive inactive systems what does that mean you know i will tell you in our definition of exoskeletons right now we don't mention passive or active we just we just mentioned a device that augments enables assists or enhances physical activity and the key part of that through some sort of mechanical interaction with your body and so we we don't necessarily sort of break it out in that way but i will tell you in the literature you'll see a lot of that and and most of the time i will say that kind of means that does it have power or is it mechanical or spring type actuated there there's some nuances to that and so but that's really what it means most the time the other thing is we talk a lot about physical augmentation or physical assistance but there's also the cognitive thing and the the one of the big issues you may see on the research side is cognitive demand does the exoskeleton increase the cognitive man of the per person wearing it or does it lower it or does it assist that's that's a question out there and we try to use uh uh i'll use a dod term a cradle-to-grave approach with exoskeletons you know everything from a force on the person all the way to this position of the exoskeleton and another key part of this that really i think should touch uh niosh a lot is that exoskeletons in my opinion is very much part of industry 4.0 and so and and that to me is about having connections between people robots cobots exoskeletons software systems networks all of the different pieces that might be in a industry type situation and there's data and communication flowing there between those elements and so it's going to be key for us in the exoskeleton area to kind of understand the software and the cyber security and the communications and the reporting and data formats and all that as exoskeletons enter into that world there and become a vital part of that communication network in a sense i often look at them as sort of as a platform to to put a lot of different technologies besides just physical augmentation move to the next one oh just before i go on this is a list of the subcommittees that are available for if you would like to participate as you can see it kind of covers that life cycle approach and we have a couple of new ones the insurance and liabilities a new subcommittee that's just getting stood up right now and they are vital part of the exoskeleton community the innovation and research one here that one is our interface between the center of excellence and the f-48 committee and they do a lot of they vet all of our projects plus anything that we do with the coe it goes in through that avenue there this is just a little snapshot of progress we've got uh four standards issued right now and then we have a whole host of work items there's probably uh a number more than i've got listed here and a lot of these we're hoping will get balloted and passed this year and so you should see a lot more on the left side here the next time you hear me and a lot of these standards that are being worked on are guides or practices and again that's going to help the community make some better decisions we hope with how they approach exoskeletons in a host of areas a lot of this is in either performance area or the human fractures and ergonomics area then this is just a last little thing about how the committee works we meet every six months um that's the the major meeting where we get all the subcommittees in the main committee together but the individual subcommittees and the task groups they meet more often than that most the meetings just like this are virtual everyone is welcome to participate in this and then i've got pat's contact information on here if you want to join or get involved in some way and you know there's a number of other committees as10 as i mentioned earlier it's like 150 or so but we work with a number of them that sort of overlap with the exoskeleton area the main ones we're kind of interfacing with right now are e54 which is the homeland security application uh fo4 which is medical and surgical materials and devices and then e08 which is fatigue and fracture so there's there's others on here we will probably work with but those were the main ones we were working with right now and then we're almost right on time which gives me just a little bit of leeway and i hope you guys can see this i'm going to show you a short two minute video and uh hopefully this will help kind of finish things off for you can you see that i hope uh i don't know if it's playing on your side but maybe not not playing no bill videos usually don't don't work okay sorry no no problem uh we will we will move so with that i'm going to close and say thank you and i will take some questions okay great this is jessica ramsey we did receive some questions uh through adobe connect uh the first one would be do you have anyone from a workers compensation insurance company on the advisory board uh we do not right now we have uh we have some connections through to our workers compensation we work a little bit with uh dahlia treater who's with workers compensation for ohio and i think we've got a number of people that are slated to be on that insurance and liability subcommittee but we don't have anybody on the advisory board for the coe yet okay thank you the next question is do you happen to know what osha's perspective is right now about exoskeletons that's that's a really good question um so when i talk to and i can't so the first answer is i don't know what their current perspective is i can tell you uh what i heard from them in 2016. so it's a yes this couple years two years old um and they were they were excited that we were gonna start developing standards in this area they were looking for standards to get developed so that they could utilize them as part of their guidance um they are they are also and this is my impression they're also interested you know how are exoskeletons ppe or not ppe uh and so that's that obviously falls within their scope and their missionary and what we hope to do as part of the center is kind of help give them some education around this technology and work with them so that they can uh see how it fits into their uh scope of their mission there okay the next question is um does the student paper competition involve phd students as well yes yes graduate students it's on there too i maybe i went a little bit quick on that but yes any any student part-time or full-time student can participate in that great the next question is can you talk about how exoskeletons would help a warehouse worker right so there's a couple ways you can look at this so an exoskeleton uh could be used to help prevent a muscle muscle muscle skeletal disorder sorry my tongue is tied this morning msc musculoskeletal disorder or it could help a worker lift more than they can right now in a safe manner most of the exoskeletons are focused on helping prevent injuries whether it's a lower back injury or other msd type injury and there are some that are looking to perhaps augment the strength to some degree but a lot of this is about retaining preventing fatigue and preventing strains and stresses to the body from doing warehouse work or other types of work so um you know there was a carl zelick from vanderbilt university he's done a number of uh research studies and he had a talk uh at one of the recent conferences and they looked at warehouse workers in particular and what they found is anyone even people that have a primary lifting job they're lifting of their time frame at work probably only about 10 percent of the time and so the exoskeleton would be to help them with that lifting but the rest of the time they're the other say 90 percent maybe 80 depending on how the worker is using it the exoskeleton is just going to be there and and kind of stay out of the way i i kind of think of it in my mind is how how is it helping the worker with their ergonomics if the if the exoskeleton is providing good ergonomic posture providing guidance as far as good human factors and movement or the warehouse worker or any worker and it's not causing any uh harm to the worker or causing them to move in a way that would cause them harm then i think it's going to be beneficial to them and we are looking at that and a number of researchers are looking at that uh through their studies about how do exoskeletons actually do help people i think it's kind of difficult to do research where you're trying to prove prove that any kind of technology or show that any kind of technology doesn't cause something it's a little bit easier uh when you're doing science that where you're focused on let me show you what it can do and i think we're going to try to to help with some of that through the center of excellence and then to tie into that answer the next question is how do exoskeletons impact the emergency response industry so musculoskeletal disorders again if you look at emt's nurses doctors anybody that's involved with the movement of patients they get a lot of injuries from doing that work it is it is tough and difficult type work they're doing and i think a nexus skeleton may provide some help in that area so that these folks aren't getting hurt from just doing their normal job okay so these are these are really coming in great because they're kind of going back to back so the next question is would there be any differences to consider regarding exoskeletons for women versus men absolutely absolutely so we we learned that i i worked for many many years in the first responder world uh helping them with technology and one of the areas that that i helped with uh was with ballistic best or ppe uh it was another name but really ballistic best and we we took you know that technology went through a lot of hard roads because it was basically designed for a man's frame and it's taken years and many many people's diligent efforts to get that technology designed now for women so it fits correctly it sits on their body correctly and and i i tell you that story because i don't want to repeat that story for exoskeletons and so i want exoskeletons they're designed to fit men and women and i want that thought to be up front versus an afterthought great thank you the next question asks why is the study looking at overhead work and not above shoulder work so that's a good question so that's a a an industry driven uh type research need because a lot of in the automotive industry you still have a lot of vehicles where the workers have to they move on tracks that are above the workers and so the workers still have to lift their arms up and to do work there and and that causes a lot of stress on the shoulder joints and so exoskeletons is one of the ways that different automotive manufacturers have found that can reduce some of that stress on people's arms and shoulder joints and so that's that's why we want to look at because the short answer is exoskeletons are being used for this purpose we want to help provide some guidance uh where we can so that the exoskeletons are that are being used are there some certainty to their performance and there's some certainty to their safety and certainly to their reliability okay the next question says what are your thoughts on standards development and acceptance based on regions of the world so we try to develop standards for a global market um i think from what i see that's going on in in europe there's there's a number of efforts that started in the exoskeleton area they seem to be looking at very similar uh issues and challenges like we've identified here we have people that participate from europe and asia and other places also so i think we're all seeing the same thing and what we want to try to do is coordinate with those other standards bodies around the world so that we can have harmonization between whatever may come out whether it comes out from a regional body say say germany's standards body puts out something on exoskeleton that is harmonized in some way with what we're doing and we work a lot in that area as as astm as a whole to to do that not just the nexus skeletons but in all our committee areas we we try to do some coordination with bodies around the world so that that it helps lower the the market barriers so you're not having to have different standards just because you go from one place say from the u.s to say india or something you know that's that's the thing that's just built into the way that standards are developed these days and then kind of a follow-up question to that someone asked um you mentioned that nist and other diplomats mentioned we really need standards what was the general understanding of creating standards and on what okay so a little bit of uh history here so when we were looking at exoskeletons that the army had approached us to to help them with what they were doing with exoskeletons and we looked at where they were going with things and what they were pursuing and me and roger discussed this and we thought you know one of the areas that could best help them would be to get them some standards so that they would have a way to do testing the exoskeletons were just starting to touch and grow in industry use also and so those two things were kind of going together and so when we brought the federal agencies together it was not just kind of it wasn't just to say hey yeah we do standards you guys think we should do some more standards here it was a little bit more of also finding out what all of these different agencies were doing in this exoskeleton area and there were a number of agencies uh not just dod that were touching this area and they'd heard about it or they were doing things in there and they wanted to know how we could better coordinate a government type approach to this and so that was that was another part of that meeting and then as we were talking about that you know people thought that the best avenue forward was through a standards-based approach and to get things like guidance documents and test methods out there and so we sort of took the lead on trying to move that forward and make that happen and that's what eventually led to the f48 getting stood up great thank you the next question asks are the exoskeleton standards available for free anywhere so there is a small charge if you buy them individually or if you become a member of the f-48 committee as part of your membership uh you get all the f48 standards you know however many there are as as part of that membership cost the membership for students is free membership for regular people is 75 a year if i'm not mistaken and i think the individual cost i would have to look but i think it's uh for the individual standards i believe it is around forty dollars is somewhere around there okay we have a few more questions and a little bit more time so we're going to keep going the next question says as important as the effects on the body are the characteristics of the types of jobs for which they are suited and not suited a lot of that has to do with benefit versus discomfort and effort to put on and take off will work suitability be in the standards yes i i think that's absolutely necessary having work suitability task suitability so you there's a lot of things you have to think about when you're thinking about employing exoskeletons in any type of situation so if you look at an industry situation you can look at the task and then this is what people are doing right now as they're evaluating the task they're looking at the ergonomics of that task or the hazards of that task so using the the hierarchy type pyramid that niosh has of course but they're looking at the hazards the ergonomics of the task and seeing okay how can we make this safer and easier for a worker so that they can do their job better and go home in in the same manner that they came here today and so as you're looking at that exoskeletons becomes one of the solutions that's possible in that area and then if you say okay this works for that task will an exoskeleton fit in this environment and and that question can get very complicated very quick it could be everything from as straightforward as you know it's got some some pieces that sort of hang out from the side of the person will it fit in the environment where the person has it has to be it will attach on things around there or is it going to be culturally acceptable for the person to wear that and sometimes that is a bigger challenge than all the other things is fitting into that that cultural work environment and getting people willing to try it and to use it the dawning and golfing is a is a huge issue it's also a huge safety issue of how can i if i wear this can i get out of this or can i run with this in order to evacuate walk quickly i won't say run perhaps we shouldn't tell people to do that but walk quickly if i have to evacuate in case of a fire or something like that and so those that there's many aspects to that and that's a great question and those are the types of things that we talk about a lot in in the standards committee the a48 committee and how do we help people think through that and give them good guidance on those thank you very much for that question thank you bill and actually another i think good follow-up question that came is have there been any studies for exoskeletons in poultry plants i have not seen any um i can't say that there might not be but i have not seen any so one of the areas that uh i know a friend of mine is is looking into and he's done a lot of research in this is is vibrations and so that that may touch on something like a poultry plant or any other place where you're you're doing things in an environment where you're working with different machines and tools and the like and so i don't know about the poultry plant but i know there's been a number of studies done in i'll say agricultural type situations there's been manufacturers like john deere and others that are looking at exoskeletons as a way to help some of the workers in those areas and so i think it's relevant and something worth looking into of how we could help people in those areas is to have jobs that have a lot of manual labor in them are always right for use with exoskeleton okay and then we have some questions regarding how much exoskeletons weigh and how much they cost and if the cost is coming down over time right right so this this is this is one of my favorite questions so uh and and i'm i won't answer it directly but i i will try to get around this so my favorite topic on exoskeletons and i and i think we don't talk enough about it is power and weight ratio uh my other favorite is center of mass because i think those two things drive a lot as far as the safety the reliability and the capability of exoskeletons uh is the is a price coming down on exoskeletons i think that's the goal of a lot of people one of our members of our advisory board uh has a goal and and he he does a lot in this area i won't out him here but he does a lot in this area he would love for this to be able to uh be just like any other aid you could buy at a pharmacy or something where you could someone could use it pick it up there at a reasonable affordable costs and and help them you know if say your knees aren't working so good or you're you're scared of stairs or you know you have trouble getting up from from your chair or something someone could go to a pharmacy and get one of these devices and those problems wouldn't be there they could go visit their their grandkids or go run out in the yard a little bit you know there are things that would improve people's life and so i think this idea of having exoskeletons be affordable and not these these devices that are you know thousands and thousands of dollars i think that's on a lot of people's minds thank you i want to combine a couple of questions that are asking about specific industries so the two things that were asked are there have there been any successful tests in the grocery and supermarket industry and then also would an exoskeleton be helpful to a truck driver or in the trucking industry right so i do not know of any test in the uh grocery industry would it be useful for a truck driver so if you're a truck driver you spend a lot of time sitting and you you have a lot of uh vibration i i don't know if people have been in a truck before but uh it it shakes you a lot and i think there's a possibility that they could help with some of the postures there i i i'm not sure how it might work but there's a possibility there because because truck drivers and others do have those forces on them is something someone could look into could could it be better than what they're already doing as far as designing the chairs and seats in trucks i don't know if it was focused on helping them with some of their touch when they're outside of their truck as far as checking tires and connecting the semi-rig together with the trailer maybe maybe there there might be something there but i think you know from a ergonomic and postural standpoint that's probably the first place someone could start but i haven't seen any that's been offered in that area like the the closest has been more for the the manual physical type things where people are are either working on a line standing or if they're sitting uh there's they're using the exoskeleton to kind of help them rest and sit with versus having a chair that they're already in uh one of the the concerns uh in areas that people are looking at is if someone has to get in and out of a vehicle a lot work while they're wearing an excess government so that's a design consideration for people making exoskeleton is if this is designed for someone say working in a warehouse and they have to get in and out of a forklift a lot or some other vehicle will the exoskeleton get in the way and how can we make this so it works best i hope that sort of answers the question yeah thank you okay we've got two final questions that seem to be kind of follow-up to some previous questions the first one is going back to the difference between above shoulder and overhead work and i think the question is um the usual exoskeletons support the area of the body and provides support whenever the elbows are close to shoulder level is that correct okay yeah so the the the overhead uh exoskeletons one of the ways they do work is they provide a support sorter uh near your elbow and underneath the arm so that when you have your arms above your head they're giving you a little bit of support so you can kind of rest on them uh there they do give you um they can give you like a little bit of boost uh because they're uh they tend to be uh at least the ones i've worn a little bit of uh like feels like a spring type thing it gives you a little bit of boost as you're lifting your arm up but most of the ones i've i've heard about is really more about giving you that sort of postural support so you're not having to fully support your arm and do the work and task above your head by yourself i hope that kind of answers that question okay um and so going back to the question about downloads um is there also a way that an institution can access the standard such as a university library requesting it i guess or would they still need that um membership yeah so yes there's a way to do that um i don't know the i don't know the exact cost with that but i i will tell you my experience with this so when i was at nist nist had a membership with astm and that membership was i will call it at an enterprise level so basically we had access to every standard that was issued by astm so not just with with f48 or the areas around at 48 it was every standard so i think a library or another organization they could talk to the sales team at astm and figure out what makes best of whether they want a access to every astm standard or just a subset of those so i i think that's definitely doable okay and then one last question we've got about three minutes left has a study of exoskeletons been evaluated with respect to the different manufacturing philosophies for example lean manufacturing not knowing where i think one of the big areas with with design and manufacturing of exoskeletons that i've heard that's on several people's minds right now is quality and so a lot of exoskeletons even though they may be producing numerous versions of a model there's there's some differences from from what i'm hearing between those exoskeletons so the there needs to be a little bit higher quality control uh and it's one of the areas we want to help with so that the people that are manufacturing have better ways to do that quality control so there is less variation from one exoskeleton to another and so that's that's another area that we think we can provide some value in and really help the the manufacturers they're they're doing a great job with designing and and integrating and building you know good prototypes and good demonstration models how do you go from there to a scaled-up version where you're producing hundreds or thousands of these things and that's always a difficult challenge with any new technology like this and so we want to be able to help okay that is all the questions that we have um jack i'm going to pass it back over to you thank you jessica thank you dr bloxy for your informative and wonderful presentation

2022-04-20 14:41

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