Korean Shipbuilder Uses Exosuit to Help Build World's Largest Freighter | Hacker News Reader

Korean Shipbuilder Uses Exosuit to Help Build World's Largest Freighter

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116 pointsokasaki31 comments

I see people practically laughing at the suit's 30 kg limit.

Well, I gotta say that carrying 30 kgs back and forth all day long is actually pretty damn tiring, and the long term benefits of this first generation suit are obvious - better health and the worker is less tired at the end of the day, which is not to be discounted - less depression, more time for your hobbies, and hitting the gym becomes a pleasure again instead of just another tiring necessity (because if you don't exercise regularly you increase the risk of injuring your knees or back at work).

Plus, this is good for developing more advanced versions, like the mentioned gen2 that would lift 100kg, which is nothing to scoff at.

But I'll still say that remote controlled or automated robots would be better suited for this kind of work than humans.

30 kg is _huge_. People who have kids surely know that carrying around a 10 kg toddler in one's arms for an hour is really taxing on the back.

I agree. Lifting 30kg is "easy". Lifting 30kg a dozen times isn't that hard. But the moment you have to carry the weight around a lot, or lift it into weird positions, it's an entirely different thing.

I do power lifting. I'm an advanced lifter (but not quite competitive levels) for my weight class and age. I e.g. deadlift 180kg raw (without equipment/belts etc.).

Yet carrying my 25kg son around gets exhausting after a few minutes, and that's when he's cooperating and holding on. I can do it for quite an amount of time, but not without being a wreck afterwards.

Most people don't have the strength or endurance to carry 30kg of dead weight around for long in any position, but more importantly, even if you can carry 30kg around on your back or clutched to your chest, does not mean you are able to do anything useful with that weight, such as being able to lift it up to chest height and push it into place, or rotating it to slide it into awkward spots, or any number of other things.

E.g. being able to overhead press 100kg still means I'm just barely able to safely push a 30kg server into place high up in a rack without assistance - precision movements or moving into positions that affect your balance or leverage in any way very substantially reduces the amount you're able to lift.

Increasing the amount of time you can carry a weight around, or increasing your ability to move the weight into various positions alone will be a big deal.

Lifting an awkward weight or moving around carrying it also brings a much higher risk of injuring your back, compared to lifting weights with proper form.

I can deadlift 220 kgs but have hurt my back moving house a few times, carrying awkward boxes, furniture and appliances up and down staircases and such. It's so important to have the weight close to your hips and not out in front of you--but that's not always possible with an awkwardly shaped weight.

True. I was stalling on back squats at 60kg for months on end and kept hurting myself trying to pass it because lack of flexibility (and stupidity...) meant I kept loading my back wrong until I finally gave in and got proper advice.

Just luck that prevented my stubbornness from causing real damage. In a way I'm glad I learned my lesson while I was stuck at a relatively low weight,though.

What kind of advice did you end up getting? Was it classes, or a personal trainer? I'm in the same situation myself, having a very hard time getting technique down for back squats

I paid for one hour with a physiotherapist, who basically took one look at me. My problem was basically that my hips were way too inflexible, so the according advice was stupidly simple.

Basically a bunch of simple dynamic stretches of the hips. E.g. put one foot forward and bend over as far as you can with a straight back, trying to touch the floor, and up again, take a step so the other foot is out front, and repeat. Or stand and hold on to something and swing one leg back and forth as well as left/right on front of your torso.

To that I added "asian squat". Just practice sitting in the squat position as long as you can as much as possible throughout the day.

It took me a couple of months to get to the point where my back squat started going up with good form. In less than 6 months I went from hurting myself at 60kg to doing 5x5 at 150kg without pain (though keep in mind that at I had been stalling at 60kg for ages and done what I could to compensate with other exercises).

I'd recommend a physiotherapist and/or a personal trainer you are very sure knows squats properly. A lot of personal trainers are clueless about strength training. If it's technique, the trainer is your best bet. If your problem is actually flexibility, a physiotherapist or a personal trainer that's experienced with e.g. gymnastics or yoga might be just as good for you.

Thanks for the reply. I am working on my flexibility. I'm still scared of squats, but I'm seeing real results in my flexibility, and squatting slightly more without discomfort.

Think about this next time you see a fat person being told to jog, or do push-ups.

Having spent the last six months rapidly losing weight: Fit people don't seem to appreciate just how much exertion that extra weight represents. They tend to conflate it with muscle weakness, rather than with effectively carrying a second fit person wrapped around one's torso who doesn't contribute to locomotion.

Holding 30kg in place, precisely, while another worker tack welds it in place.

Also people are probably used to holding things that don't matter too much if dropped. If someone dropped a 10/20/30 kg bag of rice and it landed on my toes, the bag would just fold around the foot and it wouldn't be a problem.

If someone dropped a 30kg piece of steel and it landed corner first, there's a decent chance of it just going straight through the foot.

Lifting or carrying 30kg is no joke. Especially if you need to do something with that 30kg like welding it into place. If they can get working versions of this where tradesmen can effortlessly handle 30kg loads without adversely affecting other things, that's an awesome exosuit!

however on jobs where there isn't an assembly line and on the spot adjustment is necessary; intuition; and such this is more applicable. I could see it used in building construction as well.

Indeed, the suit will improve. Consider Hardiman [1]:

> Ralph Mosher, an engineer working for General Electric in the 1950s, developed a robotic exoskeleton called Hardiman. The mechanical suit, consisting of powered arms and legs, could give him superhuman strength. Mosher subsequently made a simpler version that permitted him to sit in his chair and pick up refrigerators.

All that was old is new again. They'll get up to 100kg eventually.

[1] http://www.hizook.com/blog/2010/09/07/telepresence-robots-ne...

Another interesting invention is described in one of the figures ("DSME's New Technology"):

Freeze Pirates! - DAPS

DSME launched its new pirate alert system 'DSME Anti-Piracy System (DAPS). ... DAPS is a total ship security system for recognizing and eradicating piracy. By using the ship's radar signal, the DAPS is able to analyze image information. This system automatically judges suspected targets based on the analyzed information. If suspected pirate ships approaches [sic], DAPS will warn the target through a high output speaker and sound an alert on the ship. If the pirate comes closer, a sound cannon or water cannon will be used to incapacitate the pirate.

In many ways, that is more impressive (and scarier).

Don't forget to turn it off when coming into port.

The tugboat operators will be none too pleased when they get blasted with a water cannon.

For anyone in the know (or who wants to guess): What tools/technology is this trying to replace? Are there cranes or other tools in use at this kind of a high tech shipyard that would normally be used to lift a 30kg piece of metal while welding it into place?

I assume we're not going to see strongmen in the unemployment line after being replaced by skinnyfat geeks with exosuits…

I think the technique this is trying to replace is, 'Cranes and forklift trucks haven't the flexibility for this task? Then the workers will just have to lift the 30kg pieces of metal into place by hand. Some of them end up wrecking their backs after a few years on the job? Oh well, sucks to be them.'

I've been in DSME for a while now and this yard is massive and consists of probably near a thousand forklifts of all sizes and types, along with hundreds of cranes and mobile heavy lift cranes but I don't see technology like this replacing any of those things any time soon. You still need to bring material from workshops and storage areas to the projects like ships getting built which would be done with a forklift and/or truck. I could see these being used inside of workshops to stack materials and maybe replace a few jobs that forklift operators or a crane would normally take care of. So only thing you'd probably see this in is fabrication shops building pipe spools or cutting large pieces of metal.

Exosuits (is that what we're calling it is at the stage where progress is building, shipping, and finding a financially viable markets for products. That opens the door to a version 2, a version 3 mini, a version X nano.

Looking forward to seeing these in use in more contexts.

We are living in the future ,Ladies and gentlemen!

Call of Duty Advanced Warfare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idphc8MlwDs

Before, there was Crysis (2007) with its Nanosuit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysis) which itself was inspired by real-life US military Future Force Warrior concept (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Force_Warrior)

It's much older than that: Hardiman [1] was an actual prototype from 1965. And of course in fiction there's a ton of examples, such as Starship Troopers (the novel) from 1959.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardiman

Can probably trace it further back to "Waldo" which I believe was written in the late 30's

Only if Heinlein hadn't written starship troopers couple of decades before.

Knee-jerk reaction: "Of all the other historical-prototypes or fictional-examples, he triumphantly highlights... a recent Call of Duty game? He must be pretty young."

Nothing wrong with that--we all were once--but I'm offering it as feedback since I'm probably not the only reader nursing a sudden rush of get-off-my-lawn-ness.

Perhaps more importantly, the gestalt behind "we're in the future now" is very different depending on how far in the past you first remember "the future" being predicted.

You can probably tell someone's age by what their first encounter in fiction with some futuristic technology was. For this, it was Exosquad for me.

I've seen it lots of places, but Ripley is the iconic one I remember. (From Aliens, for you youngsters).

previously discussed here last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133808

SCV reporting for duty!

read title as "Korean shoplifter uses exosuit..."

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