Clinical trials of Russia’s first medical exoskeleton have begun in a Moscow hospital, marking the latest step in the Skolkovo-backed innovation’s battle to reach the market.

The exoskeleton, produced by Skolkovo resident ExoAtlet, was being tested by a group of volunteers, who are paralyzed from the waist down, at the N.I. Pirogov National Medical Surgical Center.

“This is a very important transition for us, from lab testing and working with a few pilots, to large-scale trials on a broad audience,” said Ekaterina Bereziy, an ExoAtlet co-founder and its development director.

“At the clinic, there are patients with various characteristics, with different injuries, of differing height, weight, even temperament. Each has his or her own wishes and fears. So here we can see the full range of real-life applications for ExoAtlet. For us, this is a very important field study,” she added.

ExoAtlet is the first company in Russia to deal with exoskeletons and has patented its technology.

A patient at the Pirogov Center testing out ExoAtlet’s exoskeleton. Photo: ExoAtlet

Its medical-use model, known as ExoAtlet-Med, supports movement for people with restricted limb function, and rehabilitation for lower-limb trauma victims. It is designed to help overcome paralysis caused by cerebral apoplexy or spinal cord injury. It could also benefit sufferers of cerebral palsy and similar diseases.

Seven hundred people volunteered to try out the ExoAtlet innovation, but doctors whittled the list down to just a few people who had to undergo two weeks of intensive training, Bereziy said.

“Here we’ve found the support and the high levels of interest that are very important for us,” she responded when asked why the Pirogov Center was chosen for the clinical trials.

Despite the short duration of the training courses, the trials will take months to get through, she added.

“We don’t plan to complete our trials in a month, two months or even six – we think this will take at least a year.”

Photo: ExoAtlet

But the ExoAtlet team don’t intend to let the trials slow their attempts to start generating revenue: “We’re taking the next step in parallel with the trials: We plan to start sales of the exoskeletons for private individuals, and we really hope to complete our first sales by the New Year,” Bereziy said.

Doctors, meanwhile, said the technology could be pivotal in the history of spinal injury rehabilitation.

“Roboticized mechanotherapy is one of the leading and actively developing areas of modern rehabilitation,” said Vadim Daminov, the Pirogov Center’s chief rehabilitation therapist. “We hope that, thanks to the data that we can collect from the clinical trials of the ExoAtlet exoskeleton, we’ll be able to take the rehab process of spinal cord injury patients to a whole new level.”

When it hits the market, the exoskeleton is expected to retail for about 1.5 million rubles, a price that won’t change despite the weakening currency, Bereziy said.

The clinical trials come almost exactly a year after ExoAtlet joined the Skolkovo ecosystem as a resident of the IT cluster.

“One of Skolkovo’s functions, as an innovation center, is the acceleration of breakthrough ideas to products on the market,” said Albert Yefimov, Skolkovo’s chief roboticist. “And there’s no doubt that the exoskeleton produced by the ExoAtlet team is a true breakthrough solution. With this project [ExoAtlet], we’ve focused specifically on the acceleration aspect. Just over a year ago the team demonstrated a prototype that was barely usable, but now ExoAtlet has reached the clinical trials phase. The speed of this project’s development has been simply phenomenal,” he added.

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Students brainstorm during the design hackathon at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

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Skolkovo Hypercube. Credit: sk.ru

By David Nowak.

On March 20-22, the Hypercube will host Russia’s biggest robotics event, the Skolkovo International Robotics Conference.

Around 1,800 people are registered for the three-day bonanza, which brings robot developers, company CEOs and investors together under one roof to discuss the latest developments in the industry, brainstorm solutions to new challenges, and help startups find the financing they need to turn take their robot from prototype to commercial product.

Albert Efimov, chief roboticist at Skolkovo. Credit: sk.ru

In a short interview with sk.ru, Skolkovo’s chief roboticist Albert Efimov reveals the niche that the Skolkovo Robotics Conference hopes to fill in the world robotics landscape, discloses the amount of investment up for grabs in the pitch sessions, and poses the most curious of questions: Would you kick a robot dog?

What is the key feature of the Skolkovo Robotics Conference?

[AE] It’s important to understand that our robotics event is far more than just a conference: it will consist of four meaningful parts. There’s the conference itself, with over 50 speakers – internationally recognized experts from Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain, Canada, China and Russia. Then we have the exhibition with 30-plus  service and industrial robotics companies, from very early-stage startups to latest-stage robotics firms. We have not one but two hackathons, with  over 30 teams and 100 people competing in both. One hackathon will focus on assisting sensoric- and perception-disabled people, the other will deal with better designs for existing technology. We have dozens of well-established mentors for those hackathons.

Then we have a number of roundtables with venture capitalists, startups and our industrial partners to discuss possible cooperation. We will also have a great investment session with leading Russian and foreign venture capitalists like the Chinese Venture Fund Cybernaut. That’s a glimpse of our activity. Right now we have over 1,800 registered people for our event.

Some of the robots at last year’s event. Credit: sk.ru

The investment community will clearly be well-represented. How much is potentially on offer for startups?

[AE] The venture capital available for our startups runs into the tens of millions of US dollars. There will be pitch sessions featuring 10 to 12 startups from Russia and Belarus.

What will be the guiding topics under discussion at the conference?

[AE] The two principal themes will be why Russia needs robotics and how to make better robots – that is, more attractive and  more useful. Also, we will deal with how to improve commercialization and so on. This is relevant because despite the fact that Russia is a country full of roboticists and IT experts and hardware specialists, we have no robot industry to speak of. There is massive potential, but no result yet. Why does Russia need robotics? What can robotics do for Russia? It’s industry for industry. It’s equipping companies with better tools to do their jobs. That creates a domino effect that can be traced through the entire economy.

How will you measure the success of the conference? Can you quantify its legacy in any way?

[AE] Yes, the main parameter of success is the number and value of venture deals that we strike at the conference. That’s the chief indicator of success. Obviously, it is always our aim to promote our field. Robotics as a theme is very popular in Russia, but we need to translate this enthusiasm into commercial success domestically and, hopefully, internationally.

One roundtable topic that seems particularly interesting is ‘roboethics.’ Can you expand on that a bit?

[AE] Technology today is reaching a point where we need to start a dialogue on how to behave around it. This is not a discussion about computers – you can treat computers in any way you like. But when you start giving computers artificial intelligence and lifelike physical attributes, are there certain behaviors toward them that become unacceptable? You cannot kick a dog, you would be locked up, but would you ever kick a robot dog? Is that acceptable? We’re getting to a point now where we are starting to require a useful discourse on this.

What about current trends in robotics? What are the leading themes today and how will the conference broach them?

[AE] The most visible theme at the moment is drones and UAVs, so this will feature quite prominently at our conference. We will have roundtables on the development and application of unmanned aerial vehicles and a related theme – automated navigation systems. We will be discussing this issue also in the plenary sessions, which will touch upon intelligent robotics in new industrial technologies, robotics and advanced manufacturing technologies, and man and machine – aspects of interaction.

 What role can the Skolkovo Robotics conference play in the world robotics dialogue?

[AE] I would like this to be a window into and out from the Russian robotics community. Companies and investors can come to Russia and get a snapshot of everything that is going on inside the country at the moment. In turn, Russian firms can develop their understanding of international trends and demand patterns so that they can modify or fine-tune their research as they see fit. It’s a showcase of Russian and international technology that, we hope, will become an integral part of the international robotics scene. It is also a wheel of opportunity for investors and startups. Russia is a cheap investment right now, especially with the currency devaluation, so it’s a real chance for investors to get a good deal on Russian robotics.

Are you planning any surprises for the conference?

[AE] Yes. Come to the conference to find out!

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

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• Robots Podcast: Russian robotics

• Proletarian robots getting cheaper to exploit

•  Russia looks inward and outward at Moscow’s 2013 Open Innovations Forum

• Dmitry Grishin on evaluating robotic investment opportunities

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.