TapeMonkey

Cyborg Exoskeletons May Soon Become as Common as Bicycles

Written By: Surfdaddy Orca

Date Published: September 2, 2009

Great grandma can soon put aside that powered wheelchair she uses to terrorize the residents at her rest home. Japan's robotics venture Cyberdyne's robot-suit "HAL" (Hybrid Assistive Limb) is now available for rent and is being tested on the streets of Tokyo:

The HAL exoskeleton –- described in a popular article for the first edition of h+ ("I am Ironman!") – helps the wearer to carry out a variety of everyday tasks, including standing up from a chair, walking, climbing up and down stairs, and lifting heavy objects. The suit can operate for almost five hours before it needs recharging.

Cyberdyne’s HAL isn’t quite ready for great grandma just yet. But until it is, Toyota researchers in Japan have built a brain/machine interface (BMI) that has been demonstrated to control a wheelchair using a person's thoughts. The wheelchair enables a person to make it turn left or right or to move forward simply by thinking the commands –- and it has a 125 millisecond response time.
The HAL exoskeleton, on the other hand, has robotic limbs that strap to your arms and legs -- providing much fuller mobility than a wheelchair. The suit's backpack contains a battery and computer controller. When a HAL-assisted person attempts to move, nerve signals are sent from the brain to the muscles, and very weak traces of these signals can be detected on the surface of the skin. The HAL exoskeleton identifies these signals using a sensor, and a signal is sent to the suit's power unit telling the suit to move in synch with the wearer's own limbs. more...