Instead of implants under the skin that turned Steve Austin into the $6 million man, the Soft Exosuit fits outside the user’s body. It boosts a soldier’s ability to walk longer distances carrying heavy gear with less fatigue and improved resistance to injury.

Exosuits are a new class of applications for soft robotics. Soft, elastic sensors in an adjustable suit made of nylon, polyester, and spandex provide well-timed bursts of power intended to reduce the energy a soldier uses to walk. The suit mimics the action of the wearer’s leg muscles and tendons. Sensors embedded in the insoles of a boot send a signal to a computer processor in an actuator box on a backpack or waist belt. Cables transmit force to the joints. The system is continuously monitoring various data signals, including the suit tension, the position of the wearer, be they walking, stooping, or crawling. All the components, including a battery that gives out 50 watts of power for 4 hours, weigh about 13 pounds.

The US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering with a $2.9 million contract from their Warrior Web program.

The Warrior Web  says troops patrolling for long periods in rugged, hilly terrain usually are carrying 100 or more pounds of equipment. Musculoskeletal injuries can occur while bending, crawling or running, especially to ankles, knees and lumbar spine. Fatigue is common. The suit worn beneath the uniform promises to enhance strength and endurance of the wearer.

In the lab, scientists monitor the biomechanics and physiological implications from people interacting with these types of machines. This exosuit differs from others in that it is soft, not rigid as in the past.

Robot suit and its human wearer are monitored in the laboratory

Conor Walsh is Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Walsh is also a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Additionally, he founded the Harvard Biodesign Lab. He illustrates the operating principle of the robotic suit with this explanation: If you have a person in a swing, and “you start them swinging, then you just have to give a little tap at the right time, and the swing will keep moving.” Similarly, if a person begins walking, swinging their legs, the sensors give a boast of energy to the participating muscles.

Mapping coordinates for the Exosuit

Team Leader Walsh is working with Wyss Institute faculty Robert Wood, Yong-Lae Park, and George Whitesides; Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Harvard University graduate students and postdoctoral fellows; Terry Ellis and Ken Holt of Boston University’s College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences; and Sang-bae Kim of MIT. New Balance known best for their Made in America athletic shoes provides expertise in textile and apparel innovation.
The military isn’t the only segment of the population that may profit from the wearable robotic suit. Alternative versions of the suit could eventually assist those with limited mobility, such as individuals who have suffered a stroke or have cerebral palsy.

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Move over MakerBot. Another company’s 3D printer will be looking down on you from the International Space Station (ISS). A small startup, or up start company if you prefer, that came out of Singularity University Graduate Studies Program got NASA’s attention. The result is a 3D printer whirling around in space ready to meet its final tests aboard the space craft.

Speakers on the CES 2014 panel The Future of 3D printing never predicted this momentous event.

Made In Space Zero-G 3D printer isn’t sexy, but if it works… space exploration will be changed forever.

Made In Space, founded less than five years ago, boosted by more than half a million dollars from a Small Business Innovation Research grant from NASA, has achieved its goal of sending their Zero-G 3D printer to the ISS. It was created and tested on Earth to be functional in space. Last October, Jason Dunn, Chief Technology Officer, speaking at TEDx predicted that this new printer will disrupt the interplanetary supply chain. Items needed by astronauts while in space can be manufactured in space, eliminating the cost and time to make the item on Earth and send it into outer space to the astronauts.

Made In Space CTO spoke at TEDx

Last year, Made In Space received a Phase III Sole Source contract from NASA to build a 3D printer that could work on the ISS. Their plan was to test current 3D technology in zero gravity and adapt the technology to go into space. Several easily controlled on-Earth problems prove more difficult to solve in space. Off-gassing when working with plastics in the closed environment of a space craft had to be dealt with by developing a special filter. Microgravity affects the thermal process used in 3D printing in that fluids don’t separate due to their being heated because there is no convection. Things float without gravity to hold them down, so the designers needed to reduce and eliminate the amount of variation in the system according to Michael Snyder, Director of R&D and Lead Engineer at Made In Space.

Snyder explains the challenges of performing 3D printing in space

Electromagnetic interference came into play as was the need to have full circuit integration in the sealed environment of the glove box where science and technology experiments are conducted. Vibrations during launch had to be considered. With all those issues resolved, or so they hope after rigorous and unusual testing techniques, the printer is finally on the ISS. Additionally, before the printer headed for ISS, it had to meet NASA safety requirements. NASA certified that the hardware met all necessary operational standards. Now, everyone is looking forward to discovering how it all works over time in the unique environment.

The first printer is owned by NASA per contract. It will only print unique geometries to test tensile strength and other material properties according to company Business Development Engineer, Brad Kohlenberg. It must prove the success of the extrusion process by making a few simple items.

Made In Space’s vision of the future

Dunn said: “When we started Made In Space in 2010, we laid out a large, audacious vision for changing space exploration by bringing manufacturing to space. We’re nearing the culmination of the first stage of our larger vision.” A second printer belonging not to NASA but to the creator company, Made In Space, will head for the space station after successful completion of this first test. The company’s plan for their printer is commercial use.

To see Dunn’s explanation of the challenges and testing Made In Space’s printer underwent, watch the YouTube recording.

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Alan Mulally has been a frequent keynote speaker at International CES in Las Vegas. His entre was via the automobile industry which had become very computer oriented. In 2010, he brought Ford employees on stage who were responsible for MyFord, a new in-car communications and entertainment system first installed on the Ford Edge. MyFord is now in version 3.6.

Mulally who became president and CEO of Ford in September 2006, took a seat on Google’s board of directors this month bringing auto industry experience to the search engine giant’s expanding horizon.

Back in January, 2007, Mulally joined with Bill Gates in announcing the Ford/Microsoft Sync partnership at the North American International Auto Show. Sync lets the driver access their mobile phone, digital player or USB drive with voice activated commands. A Nuance Communications enhancement allowed incoming text messages to be spoken by a digitized voice called Samantha using TTS (text-to-speech) technology. The French version known as Julie is actually a Canadian actress, Roxanne Jean. Paulina was the name given to the Spanish version.

Mulally served at Ford until his retirement on June 30. On July 9th, he became a member of Google’s board of directors on the audit committee. As he exited Ford, the company honored Mulally by initiating a scholarship citing his background and expertise in science and engineering. The car company announced: Ford Motor Company Fund will administer $10,000 scholarships annually to 10 outstanding sophomore or junior engineering students working toward degrees in the automotive field at premier partner universities around the world.”

Google hopes to profit from Mulally’s experience in the auto industry as they forge a path into self-driving cars incorporating info and entertainment systems. Ford used Microsoft technology. Google is understandably tethered to an Android approach.

Nissan Leaf autonomous car prototype drove through Japan’s Ogurasan Tunnel

Autonomous features already exist in several models from various car manufacturers. In Japan, Kanagawa Governor Yuji Kuroiwa accompanied Nissan Vice Chairman Toshiyuki Shiga in an 8.33 mile ride in the prototype Nissan Leaf autonomous car. Google has a way to go from their ubiquitous Google Mapping vehicles with cameras on the roof to “hands free” vehicles like the Leaf. Mulally will have his hands full helping guide them to success.

Google incorporated Titan Aerospace’s drone into their future plans 

Mulally’s background at Boeing also prompted his being courted by Google CEO Larry Page. This spring, Google picked up Titan Aerospace, a solar powered drone manufacturer, which Facebook was also considering.

Whether it is autonomous mapping cars or drones providing a bird’s eye view of the earth, Mulally brings related past experiences to his new position. We can only guess the content of his next keynote speech at CES in January 2015.

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A team of high school students took first place in the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center’s International Remotely Operated Vehicle Competition for the second year in a row.
Jesuit High School from Sacramento, California beat university teams by putting in hundreds of hours and $7,300 to create their underwater robot which would have to complete missions based on actual situations from the ocean workplace.

Predator Underwater Robot

Jesuit’s robot, named Predator, painted bright yellow, looks nothing like a fish, nor like a submarine. Ben Byers was the pilot for the odd looking, remote controlled vehicle. All contestants had to collect samples from simulated shipwrecks, inventory invasive species, and remove trash. The underwater course was changed on short notice to mimic what happens in a real life mission. Pilots were forced to use the robot’s camera, since looking into the pool for clues was forbidden.

The competition took place at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Michigan. The MATE Center uses underwater robots to teach STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math. Teams had to look like a company that can manufacture, market, and sell products. The organization’s goal is to prepare students for technical careers.

Skills were required not only in engineering, but in presentation. Jesuit had to compose a technical report for the professional judges explaining the science of the underwater shipwreck, provide a detailed explanation of their ROV, make a poster display, and respond verbally to questioning and communicate what they had learned. The panel of judges was comprised of individuals from several industries including Oceaneering, NASA, Boeing, Chrysler, General Motors, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Team leader 17 year old Alex Aprea was awarded Engineering MVP. He said “I think it was a testament that the judges felt that I did a good job on answering questions on my own and was fluid in handing questions off when it’s appropriate.” The team also won the Best Poster competition. It will be published in the Journal of Ocean Technology magazine along with their 2012 poster.

MATE has published a 758 page book: Underwater Robotics, Science, Design and Fabrication, which carries an endorsement from Clive Cussler, well known author and marine archaeologist. The material could prove helpful to future competitors. Chapter topics include Structure and Materials; Pressure Hulls and Canisters; Buoyancy, Stability and Ballast; and Navigation and Control.

Jesuit High School offers a Robotics Camp where 7th and 8th grade boys and girls experience hands on activities working with members of Jesuit’s top-ranked Robotics team. They may not learn all that the MATE book addresses, but the students get to build and program a small robot to navigate obstacles and other challenges. The camp charges a fee which includes materials. The students have the advantage of learning under the guidance of team members who bested 29 other teams from around the world.

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So, AMD announced that they would be reshuffling the company’s corporate structure which includes some business unite consolidation and executive shuffling. First and foremost, they would be appointing Dr. Lisa Su as the COO from her current position as Senior Vice President and GM of Global Business Units. Anyone that knows how AMD works and what Dr. Lisa Su has been doing already knows that she’s effectively been the COO for quite some time and that the company had actually vacated that position a long time ago. Keep in mind that AMD’s current CEO, Rory Read, was once COO of Lenovo before he came from IBM (which is where Lisa Su spent most of her career before she worked at Freescale).

So, that point is merely nothing more than a technicality. Now, there have been a few organizational adjustments made within the company as they’ve consolidated the entire company into two divisions.

AMD will have a Computing and Graphics Business Group as well as an Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group. This effectively separates the professional and consumer graphics divisions as well as the consumer processors from the server processors. AMD’s current CSO, John Byrne, will be made the Senior Vice President and GM responsible for leading the entire division and will report directly to Dr. Lisa Su.

Now, for the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group, the company will have Dr. Lisa Su herself as the acting lead of the division. This includes AMD’s server, embedded, dense server and semi-custom businesses (consoles), it also includes the related product engineering and sales functions necessary for these various businesses.

There have been rumors within AMD that the company would be grooming a new CEO to replace Rory Read, their caretaker CEO. Rory Read has done exactly what he was brought on to do, keep the company stable, and more importantly, alive. We’ve been hearing rumors that John Byrne may be one of the front runners for the CEO position, which makes sense with today’s announcement even though he was already CSO. And Lisa Su’s role within the company already groomed her for the position and her involvement in the company’s public events further makes this seem plausible.

Dr. Lisa Su (center) pictured along with John Byrne (left of her) and Colette LaForce (to her right) at last week’s Computex 2014

However, there is no denying that the constant presence of both John Byrne and Lisa Su at company announcements and launches is without a clear sign that the job for CEO is effectively between the two of them. This is why I believe AMD has decided to split the company up in two and has essentially given each of them a chance to show who of them is more capable of making AMD a successful company.

One weird thing that AMD did was mention the ages of everyone involved including Rory Read (52), Lisa Su (44) and John Byrne (43), which even further clarifies that this is more of a CEO race than anything. However, some investors and members of the board may be concerned that Lisa Su and John Byrne may be ‘too young’ to run the company even though they are clearly the two most qualified people to do so. It just adds another drop into the CEO race bucket.

I honestly didn’t see it coming down to this, as normally the CEO position is mostly politically battled from within the halls of the companies in question. If this is indeed the board of AMD’s way of giving each of them a chance to show their stuff, they may have just telegraphed it to the entire world and we will probably be able to pick the next CEO of AMD purely based upon the performance of these two divisions of AMD over the next year or two. Until then, we’ll just have to keep watching. These changes will be reflected starting July 1st.

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