(Image: Roam Robotics)
There's been a lot of hype about wearable computers in recent years, but in the Rocky Mountains, they've actually arrived.
Ski resorts in five western states are now renting a lightweight exoskeleton that enables skiers with bad knees to shred the slopes pain-free.
Made of plastic and high-strength fabrics, the lightweight, pneumatically powered Elevate exoskeleton is available for a $25 two-hour test drive or $109 full-day rental in California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah.
"It is very intuitive," said Nikhil Dhongade, chief operating officer of Roam Robotics, which developed and now assembles the exoskeletons at its San Francisco headquarters.
"One run down the hill and you know how to use it."
Skiiers wear the Elevate exoskeleton (Image: Roam Robotics)
The Elevate exoskeleton looks like a high-tech knee brace that attaches to the thigh and your ski boot.
An air compressor, battery, and main computational circuitry are housed in a 10-pound backpack.
A controller on a cable attaches to one of the backpack's shoulder straps.
The device senses what you're trying to do as you ski and then provides the torque and assistance to help you do it.
It offloads about 30 percent of your body weight, significantly reducing the load on your quadricep muscles and knee joints.
Elevate's sensors and software handle what is known in the robotics world as intent recognition—i.e.
what a person is trying to do.
Dhongade stresses that figuring out the intent of the user is the hardest task for exoskeletons.
Elevate has to provide a power assist at the right moment to the correct leg.
'I'm Bionic'
Ted Bonnitt, a Los Angeles-based podcast producer, agreed to check out Elevate for Daxdi.
The 63-year-old has skied for most of his adult life and considers himself to be in good shape from biking and hiking.
He hadn't been skiing in five years, but in late December he spent a day on the slopes with Elevate in Park City, Utah.
He skied on his own for the first hour or so and then strapped on the exoskeleton and skied for a total of five hours.
As he walked out of a lodge wearing the exoskeleton and backpack, another skier asked him, "What does that thing do?"
"I'm bionic," Bonnitt replied.
Ted Bonnitt and former ski pro and Roam rep Thomas Budd try Elevate at Park City in Utah
On the intermediate trails he found that it was much easier to turn.
"It is very subtle," he said of the experience.
"It felt like I had power steering going.
What was cool was that it wasn't there to tell me what to do but to help me do whatever I wanted to do."
Roam Robotics had ski pro Thomas Budd accompany Bonnitt and at one point his guide suggested turning Elevate off for a little while.
"It was like night and day," Bonnitt recalled.
"Suddenly, it felt like I was hauling bricks."
Bonnitt's only complaint was that it was awkward to sit in some ski lifts with the Elevate backpack on.
Elevate exoskeleton backpack (Image: Roam Robotics)
Another veteran skier who gave Elevate a try, 69-year-old Dale Kutnick, said it was like having a shock absorber attached to his knees.
An analyst at the research firm Gartner, Kutnick spent 43 days on the slopes last year, despite the fact that he has osteoarthritis in his knees.
He road-tested the previous generation of Elevate and found the backpack cumbersome and the compressor it carried too loud.
This time around, Kutnick said his knees hurt a lot less after skiing with Elevate.
He also reported feeling less fatigued.
Asked if he'd consider buying Elevate, Kutnick replied, "Ease of use and maintenance is critical.
This thing has to be adjustable out in the field, [but] I'm quite confident they'll get it right."
Designing 'Wiggly, Elastic Machines'
Roam Robotics is headquartered in San Francisco's Mission District, around the corner from Otherlab, the research and development laboratory where it was born.
Otherlab is known for its innovative work with pneumatics, pneumatic actuators, and what founder Saul Griffith refers to as elastic machines.
"We know how to make machines out of rubber and fabric and plastic," said Griffith, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient.
"Pretty much any machine that is stiff and rigid can be replaced by a machine that's elastic and fluid.
We have enough computation to design wiggly, elastic machines." And Otherlab, he boasts, builds elastic machines better than anyone else.
In 2014, Griffith provided office space at Otherlab to Tim Swift, an engineer who was part of the original three-person team that developed Ekso, a lower-extremity exoskeleton for gait rehabilitation and paraplegic mobility.
Swift left Ekso Bionics, in part, because he was frustrated by the high cost of its exoskeletons, which are made with precision metals and motors and sell for as much as $150,000.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku-TavNuwwc[/embed]
Making an exoskeleton as a pneumatically controlled elastic machine can radically reduce the cost and weight.
At an Otherlab event in 2015 (video above), Swift showed video of an upper extremity exoskeleton with an elbow joint that Roam built as a proof of concept.
The one-pound elastic device, he informed the gathering, was made with $20 in materials—a steal compared to the 15-pound, $20,000 device he had fabricated before coming to Otherlab.
A radical departure from earlier designs was necessary, Swift argued, in order for exoskeleton technology to become accessible and affordable.
"I look at a future where exoskeletons are pervasive," he said.
"They're everywhere in our lives."
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After Swift took up residence at Otherlab, Roam Robotics won grants and a contract to develop an exoskeleton for military use.
The company has been tight-lipped about that military exoskeleton, which is expected to go into service in the first quarter of 2020, but Swift has said it will increase soldiers' strength and endurance.
Eventually, Swift's dream of creating a lightweight, low-cost exoskeleton proved to have legs.
In November 2018, Roam raised $12 million in funding from several venture capital firms.
"Tim has focused on building the world's best exoskeletons for 20 years," Griffith said.
"He is dedicated far beyond the typical tech nerd."
Although public sales have not yet begun, Roam's Dhongade said he expects both the skiing exoskeleton and a medical version to sell for around $5,000.
Roam Medical (Image: Roam Robotics)
The company hasn't yet announced the name of its medical exoskeleton, which has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and is also expected to debut in the first quarter of this year.
The medical device will initially be used by people suffering from osteoarthritis in their knees, and is intended to help them with the sit-to-stand maneuver and to reduce the pain from climbing stairs.
For patients recovering from total knee replacements, Roam's medical exoskeleton will augment their quadriceps strength during rehab, helping to prevent their knees from buckling, thereby making it less likely that patients will fall.
Although the Elevate exoskeleton has only been available to the skiing public for a few weeks, the company says preliminary results are encouraging, with between 30 to 40 percent of the skiers who try it deciding to rent it again.
"Our users are coming back because they don't feel the pain," said Dhongade.
"They can ski all day and not have to worry about how badly it's going to hurt at the end of the day."
Skiers who rent Elevate this winter will be able to buy the next generation of the exoskeleton at a discount when the unit goes on sale next fall.
Dhongade said that model will be lighter and more powerful.
Snowboarders will be allowed to rent the new unit and they will no doubt notice that the union ratchets used on high-end snowboard bindings are also used on Elevate.
That happened because Roam Robotics' vice president for technology, Kevin Kemper, happens to be a snowboarder himself.
Elevate is currently available at these ski resorts:
- Northstar, California
- Squaw Valley, California
- Breckenridge, Colorado
- Keystone, Colorado
- Snowmass, Colorado
- Sun Valley, Idaho
- Big Sky, Montana
- Park City, Utah
- Deer Valley, Utah
- Canyons, Utah
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