I grew up watching sci-fi movies about cyborgs. Last week, I got to be one.
A cyborg, of course, is what you get when you bolt electronic hardware onto a human body to make it capable of things it couldn’t do before. Think “RoboCop” or “The Six Million Dollar Man.” Or me.
I’ve been testing Hypershell X Ultra, a remarkable device that uses robotic hardware to boost the power of my legs for greater speed and endurance. Designed for hikers and mountain bikers, it’s also shown some promise as a way to help people with disabilities.
Hypershell belongs to a family of products called “exoskeletons,” named after the armored bodies of lobsters and beetles. These devices strap onto our bodies to deliver greater strength and endurance. They range from passive devices made of complex fabrics to battery-powered systems that wrap around the body like Sigourney Weaver’s space forklift from “Aliens.”
And companies around the world are developing them for a host of tasks. Exosuits help US warehouse workers lift heavy loads. In Germany, health care workers don exosuits to help them lift patients from hospital beds. And China and the United States are developing exosuits for soldiers, to let them march faster with heavier loads of food and ammunition.
I borrowed a couple of exoskeletons from The Exoskeleton Store, which claims to be the only retailer of its kind in the United States. It’s in the last place you’d look — not Silicon Valley or Cambridge, but in Alexandria, Minn., a town of 15,000 located between Minneapolis and Fargo, N.D.
There’s nothing robotic about one of the products I tried, the Swiss-made Auxivo LiftSuit. Instead, it uses elastic straps that capture your body’s energy when you bend over to grab an object and gives the energy back as you lift it. Not exactly “Iron Man,” but it came in handy when clearing snow from my driveway.
I thought I’d consider hanging a LiftSuit in my garage next to my favorite shovel, until I saw the price: $1,700, more than a good snow blower. Still, it’s cheaper than the doctor bills for a wrenched back, which is why factories and warehouses buy LiftSuits for their workers.
For a robotic version of the same concept, you could look to Verve Motion, a Cambridge company founded by researchers at Harvard University.
The company’s SafeLift exosuit (which I didn’t try out personally) uses motion detection chips to monitor body movements. When the user bends forward to lift something, an electric motor tightens straps on the back of the vest to help pull the worker upright. It’s supposed to handle about 40 percent of the weight being lifted, so when a worker lifts a 50-pound box, his muscles are only lifting 30 pounds. That’s hundreds of pounds less effort per worker, every working day.
On the downside, SafeLift could offer a new way to spy on workers. The suit monitors every lift, feeding the stats into a tracking system. Now the bosses will know exactly how long it took to empty that truckload of anvils and which team members didn’t try too hard.
(Verve Motion cofounder Ignacio Galiana says the system isn’t intended for this purpose, but I figure it’s bound to be used that way.)
Still, having spent part of my youth unloading mail trucks, I’m sure plenty of workers will happily strap on a SafeLift. Verve Motion’s exosuit doesn’t come cheap, but then the company doesn’t sell them; instead, it leases them. Customers such as Stop & Shop and UPS pay around $350 a month per suit.
It’s all very practical. But when you think exoskeleton, I don’t think practical, I think Iron Man. I want something that’ll give me superpowers.
So of course I had to try out the Hypershell X Ultra, described by its Chinese manufacturer as “the world’s best outdoor exoskeleton to date.”
The Hypershell is a titanium frame that wraps around your waist, with straps that wrap around your thighs just above the knees. Two electric motors on either side align with your hips and connect to carbon-fiber rods that are attached to the thigh straps. Each motor is roughly the size of a hockey puck and produces about 1.3 horsepower.
A smartphone app controls power output. You can set it for a gentle assist when hiking or a big boost when running or climbing stairs.
Start walking, and onboard motion-sensing chips, like the ones in our phones, instantly detect the movement and activate the motors. As you walk, the leg motors tug your thighs upward, extending your stride. Your muscles still provide 80 percent of the energy used in walking, but Hypershell does the rest.
It’s not enough to make you a superhero. But when I ran flat out on my power-assisted legs with the theme music for “The Avengers” blasting through my headphones, it was the most fun I’ve ever had on a treadmill.
Hypershell says it’s sold about 20,000 units worldwide, mainly to the sort of people who wear “This Person Climbed Mt. Washington” T-shirts. The company insists it’s not intended for medical use, perhaps to avoid scrutiny from the US Food and Drug Administration.
Still, it’s been a godsend for Nicole Miller of Deer River, Minn., and her 14-year-old daughter Avery.
Last August, Avery was diagnosed with bradykinesia, a neurological disorder that makes walking extremely difficult. With help from a walker, Avery could cover only about 100 yards before becoming exhausted. “The first few months were horrible,” Miller said. “Her mobility was very limited.”
Desperate for a solution, Miller scoured the internet and came across Hypershell. She knew it wasn’t a medical device but figured there was nothing to lose.
“Avery put that on, and she walked for an hour,” Miller said. “I had not seen her upright like that in nearly four months.”
Now Avery rarely takes it off. “It’s absolutely awesome,” she said. “It’s weird that it isn’t supposed to be for my condition, and it’s amazing that it works so well for it.”
Verve Motion creator and Harvard engineering professor Conor Walsh has been working on medical-grade exoskeletons for years. He’s developing one specifically to help people with mobility problems, and Walsh intends to launch a new company to manufacture them.
Robots that look and function like humans are still years away from everyday use. But robots that attach to our bodies and help us to be more capable, and maybe more human, are right around the corner.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeTechLab.