exoskeletons

The X1 Robotic Exoskeleton looks like a cross between the legs of a Stormtrooper and a Transformer. The suit is a spinoff from NASA's Robonaut 2 humanoid robot project.

The X1 is focused on either helping or hindering a person's legs, depending on its job description. When it's set to inhibit, the X1 resists movement and could be used to help astronauts exercise in space. When it's set to help, it could be used to assist paraplegics and others with lower body injuries with walking.

Four motorized joints and six passive joints give the 57-pound suit a good range of motion. It also gives it some nice Iron Man flavor, minus the propulsion feet.… Read more

Thanks to 3D-printed plastic appendages, 4.5-year-old Emma Lavelle now plays with blocks.

Born with a rare neuromuscular condition called Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita that causes contracted joints and muscle weakness, Emma has almost nonexistent biceps that cannot move against gravity. Her "magic arms," as she has dubbed them, change that.

The plastic appendages attach to a Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX) developed at the Center for Orthopedics Research and Development at Delaware's Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. The WREX is a modular body-powered upper-limb orthosis generally mounted to a wheelchair.

"The existing WREX is all metal parts and is kind of big," Tariq Rahman, a mechanical engineer and head of pediatric engineering and research at Nemours, explains in the video below. "Emma was too small for that, so it required something light and small that would attach to her body that would go with her." … Read more

I bet New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg would like to teach sugary drinks a thing or two with this power glove.

Actually, Canadian designer J.P. Rishea's device is a gauntlet -- the Exo Gauntlet 2.0 to be precise -- which makes it all the more badass. It's billed as having a grip strength "strong enough to break hard plastic cups and crush empty cans."

Rishea's Bionic Concepts Web site is offering this exoskeleton accessory to would-be cyborgs for roughly $3,200. … Read more

In the future when we'll all be wearing robotic exoskeletons, we'll laugh when we think back on the days when we were mere meatsacks. German automation firm Festo is helping us upgrade with the ExoHand, a glove controller that can give people a machine handshake.

Known for its elegantly engineered SmartBird robot seagull, Festo says its ExoHand can not only teleoperate a robot hand in a master-slave control relationship, it can reduce strain from repetitive tasks when using your own old-fashioned, flesh-and-blood hands. … Read more

Austin Whitney graduated from UC Berkeley just last month, and he already has a full-time job. Whitney works as a human lab rat.

The 22-year-old paraplegic, who captured headlines recently when he walked across the stage at his commencement wearing bionic legs, now spends long days with the engineers who developed the customized robotic suit. He passionately believes in the device and its potential to alter the lives of those with spinal cord injuries, and he wants to do whatever he can to help perfect the prototype--for himself and others like him.

"We want to make the Model T version of an exoskeleton," Whitney told CNET. "There are health benefits to mobility. It's good for the circulatory and muscular systems, and there's a social and mental benefit. Four years ago, I thought I was going to die on a hospital bed."

That was 2007, when Whitney was 18 years old and got into a car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

"The spinal cord injury meant I would likely never walk again," he said. But he did, taking his first public steps in four years at a graduation ceremony at Edwards Track Stadium on May 7 (see the video below).

During the nine months prior, however, he had experimented with walking in a custom-fit robotic device developed on campus in the lab of mechanical engineering professor Professor Homayoon Kazerooni, who is also founder of Berkeley Bionics. That company makes the eLegs robotic exoskeleton, which is currently undergoing trials and is expected to become available to rehabilitation centers by the end of the year, with a personal version for sale for an as-yet-undisclosed price in 2013.

A friend who plays wheelchair basketball with Whitney told him about Kazerooni, one of a number of innovators around the world devoted to developing robotic exoskeletons for wheelchair users. After speaking with him on the phone, Whitney decided to visit the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory. "It is like something out of a movie set--exoskeletons hanging from the walls everywhere," he said.

It's inside that lab where Whitney does most of his walking these days, though he does on occasion roam the campus in his bionic suit. He has degrees in history and political science, and plans to attend law school in the fall of 2012. But for now, he spends about six hours a day, from noon to 6 p.m., working (for pay) in the lab. … Read more

Less than a year after unveiling a pair robotic legs that let paraplegics stand and walk, New Zealand's Rex Bionics has made its first commercial sale to a champion Paralympian who took his first steps in more than 30 years with the aid of the device.

New Zealander Dave MacCalman, who sustained a spinal cord injury diving into a shallow river, paid $150,000 for the customized exoskeleton that will have him walking up stairs, looking directly into other people's eyes, and reaching tall shelves once he has a bit more practice maneuvering it.

"It's just great, such a relief to be out of the chair," says the 6-foot 4-inch athlete as he stands up using the device in this TVNZ video. When he first tried the mechanical legs, "I was fascinated by my feet moving, so I tended to watch them more than anything." … Read more

When I was 3 or 4, I was a terrible child who swept a path of abject destruction across my neighborhood. And that was with a Big Wheel.

I can't imagine what kind of trouble my friends and neighbors would have been in had I owned one of these gas-powered junior exoskeletons. It's from Japan (of course). It's self-propelled, weighs 400 pounds, and would terrify my pets.

The Kid's Walker is controlled by the pint-size pilot, not the parent, which is a bit worrisome, but at least it's not armed with some sort of firearm, … Read more

Why go admire the exoskeleton worn by Tony Stark--played by Robert Downey, Jr.--in the "Iron Man" movies when you could wear a real-life version reminiscent of the films' special suit yourself?

That's the proposition being put forward by defense contractor Raytheon Sarcos, which today unveiled imagery of its XOS 2 wearable exoskeleton, a suit it says could allow the wearer to lift 200 pounds hundreds of times without getting fatigued, or to maintain superhuman levels of strength, agility, and endurance.

The XOS 2 is made with a wide variety of controllers, sensors, and actuators.

The suit, … Read more

Lockheed Martin has received a $1.1 million contract to test its next-generation HULC exoskeleton that can give troops superhuman strength and endurance, as well as reduce injuries from heavy loads.

The Human Universal Load Carrier consists of a hydraulically powered titanium exoskeleton that lets soldiers carry loads of up to 200 pounds for extended periods of time over any kind of terrain. A microcomputer embedded in the frame makes the skeleton move with the soldier, providing intuitive control, according to Lockheed.

HULC seems to come in two parts--upper body and lower body. Lockheed says soldiers wearing the exoskeleton can … Read more