Mawashi designs and builds human augmentation exoskeletons. Their latest creation is this upper body chassis which is so new, they don’t even have a name for it yet.
It is meant to weighing about five pounds, the design allows the wearer to carry up to 45 pounds with no additional fatigue. The burden is borne by the spine system and transferred to the hips rather than at the shoulders.
As you can see, this exoskeleton mimics the skeletal system, but is external to your body. These systems have no external power. The original Uprise (Ultralight Passive Ruggedized Integrated Soldier Exoskeleton) transfers the weight all the way to the ground. This upper body exoskeleton is a more simple and lower cost option for those who wear armor and have basic load carriage requirements like guards or vehicle mounted troops while the Uprise full body exoskeleton is more appropriate for those who most move overland by foot and carry additional equipment.
Above you can see the UPRISE and new UPLIFT flanking the upper body system. The Ultralight Passive Load-bearing Innovative Frame Technology was created for industrial applications but is already under evaluation of logistics use in several militaries. UPLIFT assists the wearer during lift, move, and carry tasks through three mechanical passive systems at the shoulders, back, and knees. Since current battery lifetimes are too short for an eight-hour workday, UPLIFT uses a mechanical clutch with springs.
I have a buddy who is a leading spinal surgeon, I’ll bet he would love to lay hands on this.
Wouldn’t an upper body only unit still let you kill your knees and ankles?
But not your spine.
The spinal injuries are what is taking guys out. Knee injuries suck, but get yourself some cadaver parts and you have some options (if its that bad). However, severe spinal injuries are leaving guys paralyzed or with severe and permanent dysfunctions.
If people want to donate time, check out your local VA for their spinal cord injury center and poly trauma units.
On a side note, if the guys and girls of Mawashi designs are interested, I talked to the spinal surgeons, and the would be willing to look at it. Sounds like a great item for an article. info@stickgunner.com if they are interested.
I’m curious, what purpose do those fake “transverse processes” serve – they aren’t interconnected, so the only thing they can do to the “vertebrae” is to keep them aligned with a wearer’s back surface. But they look quite bulky for doing just that, a lattice structure should be more than enough to achieve the same.
Also, the upper chest S-pieces (those connecting the sternum hub to shoulders) have reinforcement ribs that look hand-drawn. I bet, some generative design could improve their rigidity/weight ratio and improve breakage resistance.
They are placing armor plates over this. That’s why they are there, to keep the load from riding on the back.
Those X’s you think are hand drawn are aramid material. This thing is so new it doesn’t even have a name yet.
Could we see a photo of your system?
Why so defensive right away, especially – with some fallacious argumentation at the end? Are you familiar with the concept of curiosity or it all looks like an insult to you?
Very promising. The key is the boot augmentation, which drives a normal force from the ground, otherwise the load is just translated into the hips, knees, ankles, foot arch, etc. With the added normal force from the ground load could be truly reduced.
But as others have stated the reduction to spinal injuries alone is very promising with the upper torso system.
I wish I could see some FEA on this. God could you imagine if they made a jumpable version of this…my knees and back are drooling.
Rememeber the old Archangel Internal Frame Load Bearing system
https://soldiersystems.net/tag/archangel-armor/