cars news 10: Medical Company Joins GM, NASA in RoboGlove Development

Bioservo Technologies AB has joined GM and NASA with robotic glove technology research, the automaker announced.

The new licensing agreement between the automaker and the Swedish-based medical technology company will combine technology from the RoboGlove, developed by GM and NASA, with Bioservo’s SEM Glove (Soft Extra Muscle) technology for a more advanced robotic glove.

“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,” said Tomas Ward, CEO of Bioservo Technologies, in a release.

Initial goals of the GM and Bioservo partnership will be to develop a new grasp assist device for industrial job workers. The aim is to increase human efficiency and reduce muscle fatigue. Eventually, the collaboration could lead to soft exoskeleton technology.

“The successor to RoboGlove can reduce the amount of force that a worker needs to exert when operating a tool for an extended time or with repetitive motions,” said Kurt Wiese, vice president of GM Global Manufacturing Engineering.

The RoboGlove is the result of a nine-year collaboration between GM and NASA to develop a battery-powered force-multiplying glove to help lessen muscle fatigue for astronauts and factory workers. Using advanced sensors, actuators, and tendons designed to resemble human nerves, muscles, and tendons, the RoboGlove assists wearers in gripping tools like a human hand thus reducing fatigue.

Additionally, the Robonaut 2 (R2) humanoid robot was also a developed through the GM and NASA collaboration. R2 was launched into space in 2011.

Source: GM