SARTEXO Inc. (CEO Cheol Hoon Park), a spin-off of the
Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM; President Seog-Hyeon Ryu), has begun commercializing a third-generation, clothing-type wearable robot developed using KIMM’s foundational Fabric Muscle technology. The company aims to make strength-assist robots as easy to wear as ordinary clothing, both at industrial worksites and in daily life.
□ SARTEXO was founded by Dr. Cheol Hoon Park, a principal researcher at the Advanced Robotics Research Center of KIMM’s Research Institute of AI Robotics, who serves as the company’s CEO. Building on the shape memory alloy (SMA) artificial muscle technology that Dr. Park has developed at KIMM since 2012, SARTEXO has launched the Bionic Suit and is entering the market with a focus on industrial applications.
□ The key to the product is Fabric Muscle, a textile that generates force by itself, without motors or rigid frames. SMA wires thinner than a human hair are coiled into spring-like yarn and then woven into fabric. When electric current is applied, the fabric contracts like a human muscle and produces a strong pulling force; when the current stops and the fabric cools, it relaxes. This allows the suit to assist body movements while staying light and flexible.
□ Just 10 g of Fabric Muscle can lift 10–15 kg, up to 1,500 times its own weight. The Bionic Suit Waist, which supports the lower back, weighs only 1.3 kg including the battery and controller. The Bionic Suit Full, which supports the lower back, shoulders and elbows together, weighs 1.8 kg or less. In repetitive lifting tasks, the suit reduced lower-back muscle activity by more than 40%.
□ SARTEXO offers a lineup that assists specific body parts, including the lower back, shoulders and elbows. Its Bionic Suit Full is the world’s first clothing-type wearable robot that assists three joints — the lower back, shoulders and elbows — at the same time in a single suit. SARTEXO plans to expand from physically demanding industries such as logistics, construction and manufacturing into caregiving, rehabilitation, daily life and defense.
□ The company has also secured a production base for wider adoption. Using an automated weaving system that produces Fabric Muscle continuously, SARTEXO has replaced a largely manual process and significantly improved productivity.
□ Conventional industrial wearable robots have mostly remained shared equipment at worksites because they are expensive and heavy. SARTEXO aims to change this by making wearable robots something that individual workers and everyday users can simply put on like clothing. The Bionic Suit is easy to wash and store. It can be worn over workwear, or built directly into work clothes and uniforms to meet each company’s needs. Prices will vary by performance and the body area supported, but will be set at a reasonable level that lowers the cost of adoption for companies and makes the suit practical for individual users in daily life.
□ “First-generation wearable robots made users fit their bodies into mechanical frames, and second-generation robots strapped equipment onto the body,” said Cheol Hoon Park, CEO of SARTEXO. “The Bionic Suit is a third-generation wearable robot with a completely new form factor: the clothing itself is the robot that assists the wearer’s strength.” He added, “We will turn research that began at KIMM into real products, so that anyone can easily wear a robot, at work and in everyday life.”
□ Companies and individuals interested in purchasing or adopting the Bionic Suit, or in technology collaboration, can find more information on the SARTEXO website or through the contact details below. Product demonstrations and research videos are available on SARTEXO’s YouTube channel.
※Product Purchase, Deployment, and Technology Collaboration Inquiries: SARTEXO Inc.
·Website: https://www.sartexo.com
·YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sartexo
·E-mail: ceo@sartexo.com |
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Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.