Ever since I could read, I have been a comic book nerd. My preference has always been Marvel Comics and superheroes such as Spiderman, the X-Men, Captain America, and Iron Man. So, when the first live-action movie, Iron Man, was released in 2008, I loved it so much, I saw it three times at the theater. For those of you who do not know the back story, Tony Stark is a billionaire weapons manufacturer who creates a hi-tech suit of armor he wears as Iron Man. The suit allows him to have mega-strength, house various weaponry, and have the ability to fly.
Now it is one thing to be intrigued by this kind of fantasy, but it is even more exciting when something in real life comes even marginally close to the fiction. This is why a recent press release from Medtech company, Bioservo Technologies, captivated my attention when it announced the release of an updated version of an exoskeleton glove called “Ironhand 2.0.”
Check it out:
Bioservo Technologies says, “The Ironhand system is a smart active exoskeleton, meaning that the glove is activated when the operator starts moving their hand to perform a task, using sensors located on the palm and in the fingers’ tips and middle phalanges. To further improve the glove’s functionality through machine learning, the glove learns from the user and after a while, it can finish a movement or grip at just the slightest flick of the user’s fingers – having learned how the operator moves their hand before and during a certain task. As the system is connected to the internet through 4G or Wi-Fi, it continuously sends collected data that can be analyzed.”
Enhancing human performance through the application of technology is one of the mantras of the construction industry. Science seems to almost always catch up to science fiction.