engineering

Hardiman

Hardiman is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hardiman rather than just read about it. In short: Hardiman was the first attempt to build a practical powered exoskeleton, by General Electric between 1965 and 1971. The machine was intended to allow the wearer to lift loads of 1500 pounds (680 kg) with ease.

Key takeaways

Hardiman belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hardiman to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hardiman from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hardiman was the first attempt to build a practical powered exoskeleton, by General Electric between 1965 and 1971. The machine was intended to allow the wearer to lift loads of 1500 pounds (680 kg) with ease. The project was led by the engineer Ralph Mosher, who had previously worked on the Handyman. The project was not successful overall. Any attempt to use the full exoskeleton resulted in a violent uncontrolled motion, and as a result, the exoskeleton was never turned on with a person inside. Mosher wrote of these difficulties in designing a powerful machine functioning as an extension of the human body, noting that a machine lacking the ability to receive and interpret force feedback would be very likely to cause the machine to destroy whatever object it was interacting with in performing the task at hand. According to General Electric's Hardiman Project Report from 1969, "When turned on power to operate the shoulder joint, the arm lurched and the elbow would not operate." Further research concentrated on one arm. Although it could lift its specified load of 750 pounds (340 kg), it weighed three quarters of a ton, just over twice the liftable load. Without getting all the components to work together the practical uses for the Hardiman project were limited.

References

External links Do You Even Lift, Bro? Hardiman Was GE’s Muscular Take On The Human-Machine Interface. GE Reports, August 25, 2016. General Electric: The Story Behind the Real ‘Iron Man’ Suit Archived 2015-03-17 at the Wayback Machine. GE Reports, November 23, 2010. Hardiman images Hardiman I Project. Report. (1 May 1971)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hardiman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hardiman claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hardiman before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hardiman ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hardiman

In research: Hardiman appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hardiman in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hardiman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1960s robots, Robotic exoskeletons, Robotics stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hardiman outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hardiman in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hardiman means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hardiman out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hardiman in simple terms?

Why does Hardiman matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hardiman?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hardiman.