Hyundai Motor Group Monday announced it was testing out exoskeleton aid on its factory lines in North America for robotic assistance to workers in their repetitive overhead motions to lessen safety risks and increase productivity.
Starting last month, it has distributed H-CEX·Hyundai Chairless Exoskeleton to the U.S. plants of Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors to give knee support to sedentary assembly workers.
It deploys the next series – H-VEX·Hyundai Vest Exoskeleton – designed for neck and shoulder support by the end of the year.
The H-CEX, the group’s first industrial wearable robot, weighs 1.6 kg but is endurable enough to buttress a body weight of up to 150kg.
The investigational H-VEX is a follow-up exoskeleton designed to support workers who lean backward to assemble a car. When a worker raises his hand, the robot provides lift assist, adding power of up to 60kg and helping prevent musculoskeletal disease and increase job efficiency, Hyundai Motor Group said.
Earlier this year, Hyundai Motor Group picked robotics and artificial intelligence as one of its five innovation initiatives for future growth.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.