KIA MOTORS

''Robocop'' wins a new job

Automobile factories, among many others, require functions that do not always match the needs and strength of the human skeleton. On the other hand, if the employees could carry a few tens of kilograms, or work a few more hours, those who program the assembly lines would be very happy as long as human beings endured the extra effort. To solve both problems, Kia and Hyundai have joined the robotics and robots that can "dress" to reinforce the human skeleton.

What Kia did was not to produce a new Robocop, that is, an employee partly male (or female) and partly robot. Instead, it optimized the Hyundai Vest Exoskeleton (H-VEX) and after the Chairless Exoskeleton (H-CEX) show in August at the American plant of the South Korean Hyundai-Kia group, the latter is committed to putting the H- VEX to the test, intensively, later this year.

The H-CEX was developed for industrial use, assuming itself as a system to protect the knees, allowing the employee to work sitting, even when there is no chair. It weighs only 1.6 kg, but can withstand up to 150 kg, being able to adapt, through straps, to the waist, thighs and knees of the workers.

The H-VEX, on the other hand, aims at easing the stresses that hamper workers' necks and backs, reinforcing their capacity to withstand loads of around 60 kg. And it presents remarkable advantages when it is necessary to perform any function with the arms above the head, the worst possible situation, but sometimes difficult to avoid in a production line, of automobiles or not.

This use of exoskeletons, or robots that can be "dressed", is an advance in which everyone wins. The worker, of course, but also the company, can thus be more efficient without harming, or causing injury, to those who carry out the heavy lifting.

Autonews/Mundoquatrorodas