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- Hollywood-style whole-body supersuits — including three US Army programmes pursued ten years ago — were all dropped after disappointing results.
- Simpler single-joint wearables focused on one body region — hands, backs, knees and ankles — are spreading in workplaces and clinics.
- The €9,995 Ironhand glove is now in roughly 200 firms, MyoPro has shipped around 4,000 units and German Bionic’s Exia serves roughly 300 employers.
When both hands were mangled 24 months ago in sheet-metal bending equipment, Remco Letschert worried his working life had ended. Yet twelve months later Mr Letschert was back on a building site in Aarhus, Denmark — despite a dominant left hand still lacking the strength for construction.
A motorised glove he fondly dubs his “robot hand” lets him haul supplies, scale scaffolds, use tin snips and run a drill. Operating the setup, marketed as “Ironhand”, takes no conscious effort, he explains. Once pressure receptors in the palm and fingertips sense contact, five compact motors immediately hum to life, tugging tendons that reinforce his hold.
Ironhand price ($11,423)
Firms using Ironhand since 2024
Skip MO/GO knee device weight
Why the sci-fi supersuit disappointed
Such strength-boosting frames, generally called exoskeletons, feature regularly in science-fiction cinema, from “Aliens” to “Avatar”. In practice, screen-style whole-body models have underwhelmed.
Ten years back the US Army pursued a pair of them, plus a third covering only hips and legs. Every programme was dropped.
Improvements in power cells, motors and code contributed to what came next. But the greatest advance, notes Karl Zelik, a specialist in wearable robotics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, was holding back. Manufacturers abandoned pursuit of “Hollywood, do-it-all” concepts. Rather, current lighter, comfier exoskeletons concentrate on supporting one bodily region for jobs spanning roof repair to crop picking (see picture).
The pivot: one joint, one job
Priced at €9,995 ($11,423), Ironhand is far from inexpensive. Still, after Dutch company Skelex put the tool on sale in 2024, roughly 200 firms globally have adopted it.
The same focus on a single region explains why humbler exoskeletons are turning out to be unexpectedly valuable — and not only for hurt or disabled people.
Restoring mobility after injury and paralysis
The best-known application remains enabling mobility among disabled users. Lifeward, an Israeli company, markets ReWalk, a lower-limb frame that lets certain spinal-cord-injury patients rise, stride and even ascend steps — usually aided by crutches. Having picked an appropriate setting, the wearer tips ahead. Tilt detectors register the movement and programs fire hip and knee drives that propel the legs through the selected pattern.
A more advanced triggering approach comes from Myomo, based in Burlington, Massachusetts. Its MyoPro frame powers a paralysed hand and arm via skin-mounted electrodes. Those pick up muscular impulses weakened by trauma or illness below the level needed for adequate contraction. A tiny processor interprets the signals to deduce the desired motion, then commands actuators that bend the wearer’s elbow and hand.
The apparatus enables tasks such as tearing open packets, gripping cutlery and lugging a hamper. Around 4,000 units have shipped.
Preventing injury on demanding jobs
Different exoskeletons seek less to replace missing ability than to avert harm. Japet.W+, produced by Japet Medical, in Lille, France, encircles the waist and lower trunk. As the user stoops, hoists or transports loads, four damper-like actuators lengthen or shorten, easing load on the lumbar spine.
Four years back Julien Guilbert, founder of Lille roofer Toitech, purchased one for an employee whose back trouble kept him away for two or three weeks annually. That employee has since lost no days to back trouble. Mr Guilbert predicts every roofing crew of his will wear one of those robotic belts by the end of this year.
Deployment of exoskeletons for demanding physical work keeps expanding. Exia, a heavy-lifting frame from German Bionic, near Munich, serves roughly 300 employers. Numerous units assist factory, warehouse and cargo staff, yet Norma Steller, the company’s chief product officer, reports the keenest adopters of the “external spine” are nurses required to hoist patients.
Why adoption still meets resistance
Scepticism toward the hardware persists. Certain union leaders worry it could prompt tougher output quotas, observes Dr Zelik, who additionally serves as chief scientist at Nashville-based HeroWear, a producer of passive “exosuits”. When someone flexes, elastic straps elongate, banking power discharged as the torso rises or hoists.
Pride plays a part as well. About a third of would-be male wearers at first reject the gear as being for wimps, reports David Duwe of Ottobock, a German vendor supplying firms including Airbus, DHL, IKEA, Siemens and Toyota.
Those views are shifting, though. Adoption climbs quickest among younger employees who increasingly refuse, Mr Duwe notes, “to use their body as a simple resource” for an employer.
A great deal depends on on-the-job trials. In February, for example, a Michelin facility in Almería, Spain, which slices tyres for examination, launched such a test involving six Ironhands. Manuel Góngora Morales, the site’s manager, hopes to learn whether the tools curb repetitive-strain harm. He reports initial signs indicate they do.
Producers insist their gear does not authorise tackling bulkier jobs, though particular wearers inevitably will regardless. Even ordinary operation redirects biomechanical loads, so scientists must assess if any design overstresses unsupported joints.
From warehouses to hiking trails: the move to everyday “movewear”
Those worries could intensify as exoskeletons move toward everyday buyers. Sportspeople and outdoor enthusiasts rank among the principal audiences there.
Skip, a San Francisco startup, is about to begin deliveries of MO/GO, a knee-worn frame intended for trekkers. Fastened around thigh and calf and weighing under 1kg, the devices aim to feel like fashionable, cool “powered clothing”, rather than resembling clinical apparatus, explains Kathryn Zealand, Skip’s boss. Half a year of manufacturing output has already been reserved by buyers, she says.
Separately, in January, Dephy, of Boxborough, Massachusetts, introduced Sidekick, an ankle-assisting “powered footwear” platform. And Nike is collaborating with Dephy on electrified shoes intended to let runners go quicker and longer while expending less effort.
Could recreational “movewear”, in Skip’s term, genuinely catch on? Maybe not immediately. A leading tester of the most-hyped choice available — motorised hips released early last year by Chinese company Hypershell — described “a puppet effect”, in which the frame drove the person instead of vice versa. Few buyers will wish to sense themselves yanked through machinelike motions like that.
Still, unlike prior combat supersuits, the current, lower-ambition devices appear likely to endure. ■
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