Hyundai Looking to Get in the Iron Man Business
So, I am not going to bury the lead on this one. According to a blog post by Hyundai, the company has built a robot suit—or, rather, a robotic exoskeleton, to be more precise. This is just . . . well, it is incredible to say the least. In the blog post, which has quite recently lit up the Internet, the automaker was very quite to compare their “wearable robot” prototype to that of the superhero protagonist of Marvel’s hit comic book series, Iron Man. The blog post then goes on to say how the suit will give the wearer a push of extra strength, which will then allow them, again according to Hyundai, to be able to life objects weighing “hundreds of kilograms.”
Now, seeing as Hyundai is a Korean company, the blog post was obviously in Korean. And, too, seeing as most of the mainstream automotive media does not speak Korean, the blog post had to be translated (usually with Google Translate), so there is definitely room for the possibility that many, many things could have been lost in translation. But, gathering what we can from the pigeon-Koran that Google Translate provided, a few things can be gleamed from Hyundai’s blog post. First, the suit seems to be part of Hyundai’s H-LEX platform, which is a similar exoskeleton the automaker unveiled sometime last year. The H-LEX suit (which stands for Hyundai Lifecaring ExoSkeleton [but let’s not dismiss another comic book reference]) was dreamed up in order to help senior citizens and the physically disabled. That said, the H-LEX is considerably lighter than the robotic suit Hyundai presented in the blog post, but a robot suit is a robot suit.
The company goes on to outline a few more applications for the suit aside from lifting heavy objects and helping paraplegic, handicapped, or elderly people with regard to mobility. They also mention the applications for rehabilitation purposes as well as helping to minimize hip and knee injuries in the workplace. Unfortunately, this is, again, just a prototype and there is no set date as of yet just when such a robot suit might be available.
Of course, Hyundai is not the only company looking to get into the Iron Man suit business. Panasonic, Audi, and BMW have all either expressed interest in such a thing or even gone so far as to start building prototypes of suits of their own. So, only time will tell what the future of robotic suits looks like. In any case, though, such a thing looks quite bright.
As is always the case, keep checking back in here with us at Rosen Hyundai for more information with regard to Hyundai’s new robotic suit prototype. And while you’re at it why not browse some of our latest Hyundai models ?
