Elevate Exoskeleton Will Get You (and Your Bad Knees) Back on the Ski Slopes

(Image: Roam Robotics)

At that place'due south been a lot of hype about wearable computers in recent years, but in the Rocky Mountains, they've actually arrived. Ski resorts in five western states are now renting a lightweight exoskeleton that enables skiers with bad knees to shred the slopes pain-free.

Fabricated of plastic and high-strength fabrics, the lightweight, pneumatically powered Elevate exoskeleton is bachelor for a $25 two-hour test drive or $109 full-day rental in California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah.

"Information technology is very intuitive," said Nikhil Dhongade, master operating officer of Roam Robotics, which developed and at present assembles the exoskeletons at its San Francisco headquarters. "One run downwards the hill and you know how to employ it."

Skiiers wear the Elevate exoskeleton (Image: Roam Robotics)

The Drag exoskeleton looks similar a loftier-tech knee joint brace that attaches to the thigh and your ski kick. An air compressor, battery, and main computational circuitry are housed in a 10-pound backpack. A controller on a cable attaches to one of the backpack'due south shoulder straps. The device senses what you're trying to do equally you lot ski and then provides the torque and assistance to help you exercise information technology. Information technology offloads nearly xxx percent of your body weight, significantly reducing the load on your quadricep muscles and knee joints.

Drag's sensors and software handle what is known in the robotics world equally intent recognition—i.e. what a person is trying to do. Dhongade stresses that figuring out the intent of the user is the hardest task for exoskeletons. Elevate has to provide a power assistance at the correct moment to the correct leg.

'I'yard Bionic'

Ted Bonnitt, a Los Angeles-based podcast producer, agreed to check out Drag for PCMag. The 63-year-old has skied for well-nigh of his adult life and considers himself to be in good shape from biking and hiking. He hadn't been skiing in five years, but in belatedly December he spent a day on the slopes with Elevate in Park Urban center, Utah. He skied on his own for the starting time hour or so and then strapped on the exoskeleton and skied for a total of five hours.

Equally he walked out of a lodge wearing the exoskeleton and backpack, another skier asked him, "What does that thing do?"

"I'm bionic," Bonnitt replied.

Ted Bonnitt and former ski pro and Roam rep Thomas Budd try Elevate at Park City in Utah

On the intermediate trails he found that it was much easier to turn.

"It is very subtle," he said of the experience. "It felt like I had ability steering going. What was cool was that it wasn't there to tell me what to do but to help me do whatever I wanted to practise."

Roam Robotics had ski pro Thomas Budd accompany Bonnitt and at one point his guide suggested turning Elevate off for a petty while. "It was like dark and day," Bonnitt recalled. "Suddenly, it felt like I was hauling bricks."

Bonnitt's only complaint was that it was awkward to sit in some ski lifts with the Elevate haversack on.

Elevate exoskeleton backpack (Prototype: Roam Robotics)

Some other veteran skier who gave Drag a try, 69-year-old Dale Kutnick, said it was like having a shock absorber attached to his knees. An analyst at the research firm Gartner, Kutnick spent 43 days on the slopes last year, despite the fact that he has osteoarthritis in his knees. He road-tested the previous generation of Elevate and constitute the haversack cumbersome and the compressor information technology carried likewise loud.

This time around, Kutnick said his knees hurt a lot less after skiing with Elevate. He also reported feeling less fatigued. Asked if he'd consider buying Elevate, Kutnick replied, "Ease of utilize and maintenance is critical. This thing has to be adjustable out in the field, [but] I'm quite confident they'll get information technology right."

Designing 'Wiggly, Elastic Machines'

Roam Robotics is headquartered in San Francisco'due south Mission District, effectually the corner from Otherlab, the inquiry and development laboratory where it was born. Otherlab is known for its innovative piece of work with pneumatics, pneumatic actuators, and what founder Saul Griffith refers to as elastic machines.

"We know how to make machines out of condom and fabric and plastic," said Griffith, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient. "Pretty much any auto that is stiff and rigid can be replaced by a machine that's elastic and fluid. We have enough computation to design wiggly, elastic machines." And Otherlab, he boasts, builds rubberband machines better than anyone else.

In 2022, Griffith provided office space at Otherlab to Tim Swift, an engineer who was part of the original three-person team that developed Ekso, a lower-extremity exoskeleton for gait rehabilitation and paraplegic mobility. Swift left Ekso Bionics, in part, considering he was frustrated past the high cost of its exoskeletons, which are made with precision metals and motors and sell for as much as $150,000.

Making an exoskeleton equally a pneumatically controlled elastic motorcar can radically reduce the cost and weight. At an Otherlab consequence in 2022 (video in a higher place), Swift showed video of an upper extremity exoskeleton with an elbow joint that Roam built equally a proof of concept. The ane-pound elastic device, he informed the gathering, was made with $20 in materials—a steal compared to the fifteen-pound, $20,000 device he had fabricated before coming to Otherlab. A radical departure from before designs was necessary, Swift argued, in order for exoskeleton technology to get accessible and affordable.

"I look at a future where exoskeletons are pervasive," he said. "They're everywhere in our lives."

Afterward Swift took upwardly residence at Otherlab, Roam Robotics won grants and a contract to develop an exoskeleton for armed forces use. The company has been tight-lipped most that military exoskeleton, which is expected to become into service in the first quarter of 2022, but Swift has said it will increase soldiers' strength and endurance.

Eventually, Swift's dream of creating a lightweight, low-price exoskeleton proved to have legs. In November 2022, Roam raised $12 million in funding from several venture capital firms.

"Tim has focused on edifice the earth's all-time exoskeletons for xx years," Griffith said. "He is dedicated far beyond the typical tech nerd."

Although public sales have not notwithstanding begun, Roam's Dhongade said he expects both the skiing exoskeleton and a medical version to sell for around $5,000.

Roam Medical (Image: Roam Robotics)

The company hasn't still appear the name of its medical exoskeleton, which has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and is besides expected to debut in the offset quarter of this year. The medical device will initially be used by people suffering from osteoarthritis in their knees, and is intended to aid them with the sit-to-stand maneuver and to reduce the pain from climbing stairs.

For patients recovering from total knee joint replacements, Roam's medical exoskeleton will broaden their quadriceps strength during rehab, helping to prevent their knees from buckling, thereby making information technology less probable that patients will fall.

Although the Drag exoskeleton has just been available to the skiing public for a few weeks, the company says preliminary results are encouraging, with between 30 to forty pct of the skiers who try information technology deciding to rent information technology again.

"Our users are coming dorsum because they don't experience the pain," said Dhongade. "They can ski all solar day and non take to worry about how badly it'south going to hurt at the end of the day."

Skiers who rent Elevate this winter volition be able to buy the side by side generation of the exoskeleton at a discount when the unit goes on auction next fall. Dhongade said that model will be lighter and more powerful. Snowboarders volition be allowed to rent the new unit of measurement and they will no doubt notice that the spousal relationship ratchets used on high-end snowboard bindings are also used on Elevate. That happened because Roam Robotics' vice president for technology, Kevin Kemper, happens to be a snowboarder himself.

Elevate is currently bachelor at these ski resorts:

• Northstar, California
• Squaw Valley, California
• Breckenridge, Colorado
• Keystone, Colorado
• Snowmass, Colorado
• Lord's day Valley, Idaho
• Big Sky, Montana
• Park City, Utah
• Deer Valley, Utah
• Canyons, Utah

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news-analysis/35887/elevate-exoskeleton-will-get-you-and-your-bad-knees-back-on-the-ski-slopes

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