History of Exoskeletons

History of Organization

The spark for AExG was ignited in 2017, following an automotive industry safety meeting. This meeting featured an introduction to exoskeletons by Frank Pochiro, an engineer at BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC (Spartanburg, SC, USA). Based on the positive feedback, Frank developed the idea for the group, enlisting the assistance of Marisol Barrero, formally at Toyota Motor North America, as the co-founder. The first general membership meeting was kicked off in March 2018 at the Wearable Robotics Association (WearRA) Conference held in Scottsdale, AZ.

WeaRA is a professional association dedicated to the entrepreneurs, businesses, and academics fueling the wearable robotics industry. WearRA provides a forum for the wearable robotics community, and groups like AExG, to share ideas and collaborate in a way that expands and improves the ecosystem of technologies and participants. AExG strictly complies with all WearRA policies and procedures, including antitrust policies.

"The advancement of robotic exoskeletons previously started in the second half of the 20th century. Due to the technical restrictions of their time, and the absence of experience and information, it took many decades before the technology developed and the first exoskeletons were prepared for the market.

With the start of the 21st century, the first exoskeletons advanced toward the market and are available to an expanding number of users. Improvement proceeded in the first decade of the 21st century at an increasing number of research labs and organizations. Towards the decade's end, a few models of military exoskeletons that mean to increase their user's solidarity and perseverance were introduced. Models are the Raytheon XOS exoskeleton, which is a full body exoskeleton, and Lockheed Martin’s “Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) that upholds its users to carry a heavy backpack."

Dick's Exoskeleton 1991

Radulovic 1980

Hardiman 1965

Yagn 1889- 1890

Boldt's Exoskeleton

1994

Chareire 1989

Neil Mizen's Exoskeleton 1969

Leslie C. Kelley "Pedomotor" 1917

The majority of them are intended to empower paraplegic users to leave the wheelchair and walk upstanding with the help of the device. Models are the Rewalk device (ReWalk Robotics), and the Indego exoskeleton (Parker Hannifin) that is based on an exploration framework from Vanderbilt University."

Information courtesy of EduExo