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Navy's exoskeleton could make workers 20 times more productive
CNN ^ | 10/15/2014 | Liz Stinson

Posted on 10/15/2014 3:09:53 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Military work is physically demanding—and we're not just talking about soldiers on the battlefield. Travel down the chain, and you'll find plenty of positions where strength and stamina are highly valued skills.

Take the Navy for example. The Navy needs ships and those ships need to be built and maintained—a rough, physically draining job. Sandblasting, riveting, and grinding excess metal off the ships can take a toll on the human body. You're often carrying tools that can weigh upwards of 30 pounds.

"There's a lot of wear and tear on you," says Adam Miller, director of new initiatives for Lockheed Martin. "Skilled workers can maybe do that for three to four minutes then they need to put the tool down and they need to rest."

For the past couple of years, Miller has been leading a team of engineers and designers to create one of the first industrial-use exoskeletons. Called the FORTIS, the exoskeleton is able to support tools of up to 36 pounds and transfer that load from a worker's hands and arms to the ground. The goal is to lighten workers' loads, ultimately making them more productive and skilled at their jobs.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: defense; exoskeleton; navy
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1 posted on 10/15/2014 3:09:53 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

LOCKHEED MARTIN's FORTIS EXOSKELETON



2 posted on 10/15/2014 3:11:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (If at first you don't succeed, put it out for beta test.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I had a co worker who was in the Navy for 4 years, I asked him what he did in the Navy, he said, “I scraped paint?.


3 posted on 10/15/2014 3:13:34 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Liberalism empties treasuries, blackens souls, and decimates everything it touches)
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To: SeekAndFind

20 times nothing is still nothing.


4 posted on 10/15/2014 3:13:55 PM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: SeekAndFind

5 posted on 10/15/2014 3:14:50 PM PDT by Alex Murphy ("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
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To: Graybeard58

I looked at gauges. A slight step up.


6 posted on 10/15/2014 3:15:16 PM PDT by wally_bert (There are no winners in a game of losers. I'm Tommy Joyce, welcome to the Oriental Lounge.)
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To: SeekAndFind

All evolution eventually leads to a venomous winged ant e.g. the yellowjacket.


7 posted on 10/15/2014 3:15:47 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: SeekAndFind

8 posted on 10/15/2014 3:18:06 PM PDT by Slyfox (Satan's goal is to rub out the image of God he sees in the face of every human.)
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To: All

That thing will come in ahndy when swabbing the deck, or picking rust :-P

Semper Fi


9 posted on 10/15/2014 3:21:38 PM PDT by Turbo Pig (...to close with and destroy the enemy...)
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To: SeekAndFind

Man, think how fast you could run a buffy with that thing. BTT


10 posted on 10/15/2014 3:23:15 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: SeekAndFind

"My back's killing me. Break me off a piece of that exoskeleton."
"It doesn't work that way. You can't just break off a piece of an exoskeleton."
-- It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, S3E15
11 posted on 10/15/2014 3:24:29 PM PDT by Alex Murphy ("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
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To: wally_bert
I did FOD walk. I was a zoomie.

/johnny

12 posted on 10/15/2014 3:25:23 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Alex Murphy

Not new. Popular Mechanics showed this back in the 1960s, and the movie THE AMBUSHERS with Dean Martin also showed it in the brewery fight.


13 posted on 10/15/2014 3:25:36 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: SeekAndFind

As a current active duty sailor, these are pretty cool, but let’s be honest, it’ll be a hundred years before these roll out to the fleet. We just got rid of Windows XP fer crying’ out loud.


14 posted on 10/15/2014 3:26:34 PM PDT by Drew68
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To: JRandomFreeper
Foreign Object Damage baby! I remember those walks...

Ahh, the pleasures of being a tirekicker in the USAF...;-) (That's a Crew Chief for the uninitiated)

15 posted on 10/15/2014 3:27:14 PM PDT by EnigmaticAnomaly ("With the demonrats in charge, we find ourselves living in an ineptocracy.")
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To: Alex Murphy

Bay 12, please!


16 posted on 10/15/2014 3:28:34 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (Pointing out dereliction of duty is NOT fear mongering, especially in a panDEMic)
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To: SeekAndFind
Reduce muscle fatigue by 300%? If I reduced it by 100% I wouldn't get tired at all, so at 300% I guess 4 hours of hard work would give me the muscle recovery of a full 8 hours of sleep.
17 posted on 10/15/2014 3:29:20 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (The IRS: either criminally irresponsible in backup procedures or criminally responsible of coverup.)
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To: SeekAndFind

If that productivity gain is true, all government “workers” all should get 3 or 4 of them.


18 posted on 10/15/2014 3:29:21 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: KarlInOhio

“Skilled workers can maybe do that for three to four minutes then they need to put the tool down and they need to rest.”

Been there done that.

Oh yes, they rest for maybe ten seconds then it’s back
to the grind for two hours if your lucky, eight hours
or more in a day.

Lord, where do they get these people, the WORK of a
WW II. ship yard would kill most of them.


19 posted on 10/15/2014 3:53:33 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Theoretical ideas in magazines and movies are quite different than a working model in the real world though.


20 posted on 10/15/2014 4:26:26 PM PDT by Boogieman
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