BMW, IKEA Using AI-Powered Exoskeleton That Adds 66 Pounds Of Lift Force

2.7 billion people on this planet have “deskless jobs,” many of which require bending, lifting, moving, and carrying. Germany Bionic just released the fifth generation Cray X AI-enhanced power suit, or exoskeleton, to help those billions of people with almost 70 pounds of additional lifting capacity, reducing the risk of back injury and repetitive stress injuries. The Cray X is already in use at BMW, IKEA, and the French delivery service DPD, and will be launched internationally in January 2022.

The AI-powered suit boosts productivity, reduces error rates, decreases accidents, and results in a 25% reduction in the number of sick days workers take, German Bionic says.

The smart exoskeleton market has been estimated to be growing 41.3% a year to a nearly $2 billion industry by 2025, with applications in construction, shipping and receiving, healthcare, and the military. But it’s not just for the billions in the workforce.

German Bionic CEO Armin Schmidt thinks that within five years this kind of smart exoskeleton capability could help the injured, aged, and disabled to walk, run, or even play sports.

“We don’t want to create a superhuman, we want to empower the human in certain daily life tasks,” Schmidt told me in a recent episode of the TechFirst podcast. “Every time when the human lifts something, which is happening a lot of times in a lot of different industries, it takes away the burden up to 30 kilos.”

The Cray X is essentially a tool that you wear.

Powered by a hot-swappable 40-volt battery, it consists of carbon-fiber backpack-like unit that connects to your body at the chest, hips, and upper legs. When the AI-enabled unit senses that you are trying to lift something, it adds power to that effort, allowing you to both lift and carry with less effort. Always learning, the latest fifth-generation Cray X gets better as you use it more, anticipating movements and needed additional force, and learning how each individual worker moves and where they might need more or less support.

The Cray X is waterproof and dustproof, so it can be used both indoors and outdoors, as well is in dirty, dusty construction environments. It can also connect to industrial IoT platforms and smart factory applications, enabling smooth integration with existing automation and intelligence.

Putting it on takes 20 seconds once you’re used to it, perhaps a minute if you’re not, the company says.

The result of wearing the Cray X, Schmidt says, is that the cumulative daily lifting weight of a warehouse worker, which might be as much as 10 to 15 tons, can be cut in half. Plus, workers who have to walk all day also get assistance.

Listen to our conversation:

Both are significant for something far beyond work: health and wellness.

“One of our customers is actually an airport in Europe,” Schmidt told me. “One of [the testers] actually told us … since he used the device, he’s capable to play in the evening again with his daughter.”

Another interesting thing from a worker’s viewpoint is that the Cray X provides detailed data on how much you’ve lifted and what you’ve done, roughly analogous to the data an athlete gets from a fitness tracker. Perhaps more importantly, the suit will warn you if you’re lifting incorrectly, give tips for better technique to avoid injury, recognize symptoms of fatigue, and suggest breaks when needed.

Schmidt sees powered exoskeletons as critical steps in enabling workers in an emerging smart, connected factory.

In other words, the answer is not just more robots.

“My core belief is that we should enable humans to be part of the society. I totally disagree in replacing them completely,” Schmidt says. “I quote the founder of Acer who once told me he don’t understand why we always want to replace humans. We have enough. So I think we should really kind of make use of intelligence and human life and actually empower and enable them.”

In the future, German Bionic sees the opportunity to provide powered exoskeletons for more than just workers and laborers. Sick, injured, or aged people could regain functionality, freedom, and quality of life by being assisted as they walk or move.

Which, Schmidt thinks, will make exoskeletons common everywhere.

“I strongly believe within five to 10 years — maybe, I think already in five years, so you will look out the window, you will look on the streets and you will see a significant amount of people who have such kind of device for different use cases. So maybe an older population would just use it to help them to walk.”

Founders and CEO tend to be optimistic, and costs of early technology tends to be high, so he might be just a bit early on that.

Subscribe to the TechFirst podcast, or get a transcript.