In the latest piece of evidence that we’ll eventually be cyborgs, workers at a Swedish medical tech company are being outfitted with a robotic glove that’ll give ‘em a Kung-Fu grip that’d make G.I. Joe blush.
First used on the International Space Station as part of a nine-year collab between GM and NASA, the RoboGlove has sensors, actuators and mechanical tendons that replicate the nerves, muscles and tendons in a human hand.
Bioservo Technologies — which produces a high-tech glove of its own featuring SEM (Soft Extra Muscle) technology — will attempt to merge its device’s tech with the battery-powered wearable to create a “grasp assist device” for industrial use.
The new device could add more dexterity and improve human efficiency while also eliminating the fatigue that crops up in hand muscles after a few minutes of continuously holding a tool.
According to a 2012 NASA release, a factory worker would need use 15-20 pounds of force to hold a tool during an operation. With the glove on, that same worker would only have to apply 5-10 pounds of force.
“Combining the best of three worlds — space technology from NASA, engineering from GM and medtech from Bioservo — in a new industrial glove could lead to industrial scale use of the technology,” Bioservo CEO Tomas Ward predicts.
Your glove, creep.