Ripley used something like this in the movie Aliens to battle the queen on the orbiting ship. Traditionally, however, there’s simply no market for alien-bashing super-loader suits that turn you into a steel cyborg of doom and destruction. What does exist, however, is a tool that might make those job listings from UPS and FedEx that that insist you be able to load 70 pound packages just a little bit easier to achieve – even if you’re 5 feet tall and weigh 90 pounds…Panasonic has introduced the ultimate lifting tool – the Powerloader Light.
OK, so the Powerloader lacks those all important blowtorch-wielding 350 pound hydraulic arms… it’s more of a scaled-down model that is made for every day use. At least for people who can afford to purchase a quarter of a million dollar machine like this one (we know you’re out there). The Powerloader Light uses what they call a “force-feedback” system to augment human strength. It does it so well that, even with the weight of the unit itself, you gain the ability to lift an additional 88 pounds with it strapped on. From the picture you can gather that it does this largely through augmenting you leg strength. You still have to use your arms, but you’d be surprised how much of that weight, when properly distributed, is liftable when your legs are strengthened. There are six-axis sensors in the feet (wait a second, did they use the PS3 controller as a base?) that allow the Powerloader Light to sense when you’re shifting your weight around, and cause the unit to react accordingly.
The Powerloader Light is still, in all practicality, a perpetual beta machine. Until the day they mass produce it, and maybe add some arms, it’s going to remain niche – nit even to be picked up in scale by major carriers like UPS and FedEx until the principles of economy of scale kick in and drop the price. Speaking of arms, Panasonic didn’t miss the obvious, they just brought this to market in a way that it works well without the arms. If you check their website for more information, you can see the additional technology – and it includes arms (the Dual-Arm Power amplification Robot)
Cool? Heck yeah. I want one – and the first thing I’d do with it is get it into the shop for a proper yellow and black paint job.
