A new exoskeleton to support workers in railways maintenance and renewal operations

3 years ago by L4sBot to c/technology

A back support exoskeleton has been developed at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology—IIT) to improve railway workers' safety and conditions for heavy manual material handling during maintenance and renewal operations.

A new exoskeleton to support workers in railways maintenance and renewal operations::A back support exoskeleton has been developed at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology—IIT) to improve railway workers' safety and conditions for heavy manual material handling during maintenance ...

justhach 27 points 3 years ago

This is awesome. Just think of how much this will improve the quality of life if we can reduce the strain of repetitive stress injuries so people can spend more time enjoying their off time rather than just simply recovering from the wear and tear of their day job.

path: 0 1635959, hotness: undefined, score: 27, children: 6
bricklove 14 points 3 years ago

And the owners will use it as an excuse to not hire more workers or increase wages for the more productive current workers

path: 0 1635959 1638189, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 0
rycee 9 points 3 years ago

Definitely! There are so many jobs with heavy lifts where something like this could help. Spanning all the way from construction to health care.

path: 0 1635959 1636776, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 0
Marsupial 6 points 3 years ago

Hahaha ah yeah imagine seeing the fruits of technological productivity increases instead of it being used to dump more workload on us.

path: 0 1635959 1657323, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
CookieJarObserver -3 points 3 years ago
path: 0 1635959 1636331, hotness: undefined, score: -3, children: 2
Fpsfrank85 3 points 3 years ago

Help workers?!? Get those to a front line!

path: 0 1635959 1636331 1637924, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
CookieJarObserver 1 point 3 years ago
path: 0 1635959 1636331 1637924 1641665, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Kachilde 16 points 3 years ago

I Imagine the companies treat their equipment maintenance about as well as their track maintenance.

How long till we get reports on the first worker being torn limb from limb when their power suit malfunctions from wear?

path: 0 1647315, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 3
DaveNa 2 points 3 years ago

Exactly what I was thinking. No thanks, I'll pass. Edit: the most voted post is the happy oblivious one. Ignorance is bliss.

path: 0 1647315 1658083, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 2
justhach 3 points 3 years ago

Fuck me for trying to be optimistic, right?

Of course business will try to exploit this to try and squeeze a little more labour from their workers, but what good is it in constantly being negative about developments like this?

I imagine that you would have complained about Henry Ford's crazy "40 hour work week" as a cynical ploy to drive up auto sales.

path: 0 1647315 1658083 1667566, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
Jimbo 1 point 3 years ago

Haha wow you weren't kidding about that edit

path: 0 1647315 1658083 1665061, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
StalksEveryone 13 points 3 years ago

if only amtrak cared this much about their railroads and workers

path: 0 1638221, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 7
localhost001 8 points 3 years ago

Funny you mention Amtrak, as I just yesterday watched this video which shows the current Amtrak experience, explains the history and why it’s currently so far behind the rest of the world. Turns out, it’s been starved of funding from the government for a long time.

https://youtu.be/von_IMi97-w

path: 0 1638221 1638570, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 6
cedarmesa 2 points 3 years ago

💀

path: 0 1638221 1638570 1645711, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 4
localhost001 4 points 3 years ago

“Amtrak is a state-owned enterprise. This means that Amtrak is a for-profit company, but that the federal government owns all its preferred stock.”

“ Yes, your tax dollars (a tiny portion of them, at least) winds up keeping Amtrak trains on the tracks. Amtrak makes a significant portion of its money from ticket sales, but the company could not exist without the help of federal/state subsidies and billions of dollars in grants.

Amtrak typically sees between 1 and 2 billion dollars of federal money come its way each year. That’s roughly equivalent to a few thousandths of the federal government’s budget. If we took a super simple view of our tax bills, we could say that most Americans spend a couple bucks each year to subsidize Amtrak. Obviously, taxes are way more complicated than that, but it’s helpful to think about.

64% of Amtrak’s money comes directly from ticket sales. The rest comes from a combination of other things, most especially subsidies and grants, though investments and other business activities account for significant revenue as well.”

path: 0 1638221 1638570 1645711 1652411, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 3
cedarmesa 2 points 3 years ago

💀

path: 0 1638221 1638570 1645711 1652411 1664345, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 2
PipedLinkBot 2 points 3 years ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/von_IMi97-w

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

path: 0 1638221 1638570 1638571, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
abracaDavid 5 points 3 years ago

Now they'll never need a sick day!

path: 0 1638616, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
scarabic 1 point 3 years ago

Sick days are a human right, etc, but if this reduces the number that are taken because of back pain, that’s a win for everyone.

path: 0 1638616 1647974, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
riodoro1 3 points 3 years ago

The only problem is that the rail companies all over the world treat their workers like a consumable item. If they had thousands of dollars spare per each rail worker that money would go immediately to the pockets of the executives. As it mostly does today.

path: 0 1677009, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
technology
technology

@lemmy.world

login for more options
88885
22267
14630

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


go to feed...