exoskeleton – Robohub

ep.328: Inside Cybathlon, with Anni Kern

Kate Zhou — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 18:30:00 +0000

Kate speaks with Anni Kern, Head of Communication, strategy, and teams at Cybathlon for over four years. She describes the motivation and concepts for the Cybathlon organizations to develop a common platform to remove barriers between people with disabilities, technology developers, and the public. Anni also describes the specifics of Cybathlon competitions and the organization and planning.

Anni Kern

Anni Kern, CYBATHLON Head of Communication, Strategy, Teams and CYBATHLON @school. ETH Zurich is the inventor of the CYBATHLON project. The CYBATHLON offers a platform to advance research in the field of assistive technology and to promote dialogue with the public about the inclusion of people with disabilities in everyday life. The core of CYBATHLON of ETH Zurich is a unique competition in which people with physical disabilities compete against each other to complete everyday tasks using state-of-the-art technical assistance systems. At the CYBATHLON 2016, Anni Kern was responsible for the coordination and the support of the participating international CYBATHLON teams. Since 2017 she is among others responsible for the strategy, communication, conception of the live event as well as the CYBATHLON @school programme.

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ep.260: Hyundai’s Exoskeletons, with Sangin Park

Audrow Nash — Mon, 14 May 2018 19:40:29 +0000

In this interview, Audrow Nash speaks with Sangin Park, Senior Research Engineer at Hyundai, about exoskeletons. Park describes three exoskeleton prototypes: one for helping workers reduce back pain, one for assisting a person with paraplegia, and an exoskeleton for soldiers. Park discusses the sensors and actuators of each exoskeleton, as well as Hyundai’s exoskeleton ambitions.

Sangin Park

Sangin Park is a Senior Research Engineer at Hyundai.

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Robot-driven device improves crouch gait in children with cerebral palsy

Columbia Engineering — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 21:12:14 +0000

Child using robot-driven TPAD training method to improve crouch gait, symptom of cerebral palsy.
—Photo courtesy of Sunil Agrawal/Columbia Engineering

In the U.S., 3.6 out of 1000 school-aged children are diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP). Their symptoms include abnormal gait patterns which results in joint degeneration over time. Slow walking speed, reduced range of motion of the joints, small step length, large body sway, and absence of a heel strike are other difficulties that children with CP experience. A subset of these children exhibit crouch gait which is characterized by excessive flexion of the hips, knees, or ankles.

A team led by Sunil Agrawal, professor of mechanical engineering and of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at Columbia Engineering, has published a pilot study in Science Robotics that demonstrates a robotic training method that improves posture and walking in children with crouch gait by enhancing their muscle strength and coordination.

Crouch gait is caused by a combination of weak extensor muscles that do not produce adequate muscle forces to keep posture upright, coupled with tight flexor muscles that limit the joint range of motion. Among the extensor muscles, the soleus, a muscle that runs from just below the knee to the heel, plays an important role in preventing knee collapse during the middle of the stance phase when the foot is on the ground. Critical to standing and walking, the soleus muscle keeps the shank upright during the mid-stance phase of the gait to facilitate extension of the knee. It also provides propulsive forces on the body during the late stance phase of the gait cycle.

“One of the major reasons for crouch gait is weakness in soleus muscles,” says Agrawal, who is also a member of the Data Science Institute. “We hypothesized that walking with a downward pelvic pull would strengthen extensor muscles, especially the soleus, against the applied downward pull and would improve muscle coordination during walking. We took an approach opposite to conventional therapy with these children: instead of partial body weight suspension during treadmill walking, we trained participants to walk with a force augmentation.”

The research group knew that the soleus, the major weight-bearing muscle during single stance support, is activated more strongly among the lower leg muscles when more weight is added to the human body during gait. They reasoned that strengthening the soleus might help children with crouch gait to stand and walk more easily.

To test their hypothesis, the team used a robotic system — Tethered Pelvic Assist Device (TPAD) — invented in Agrawal’s Robotics and Rehabilitation (ROAR) Laboratory. The TPAD is a wearable, lightweight cable-driven robot that can be programmed to provide forces on the pelvis in a desired direction as a subject walks on a treadmill. The researchers worked with six children diagnosed with CP and exhibiting crouch gait for fifteen 16-minute training sessions over a duration of six weeks. While the children walked on treadmills, they wore the TPAD as a lightweight pelvic belt to which several wires were attached. The tension in each TPAD wire was controlled in real time by a motor placed on a stationary frame around the treadmill, based on real-time motion capture data from cameras. The researchers programmed the TPAD to apply an additional downward force through the center of the pelvis to intensively retrain the activity of the soleus muscles. They used a downward force equivalent to 10 percent of body weight, based on the results of healthy children carrying backpacks. This was the minimum weight needed to show notable changes in posture or gait during walking.

“TPAD is a unique device because it applies external forces on the human body during walking,” says Jiyeon Kang, PhD candidate and lead author of the paper. “The training with this device is distinctive because it does not add mass/inertia to the human body during walking.”

The team examined the children’s muscle strength and coordination using electromyography data from the first and last sessions of training and also monitored kinematics and ground reaction forces continuously throughout the training. They found that their training was effective; it both enhanced the children’s upright posture and improved their muscle coordination. In addition, their walking features, including step length, range of motion of the lower limb angles, toe clearance, and heel-to-toe pattern, improved.

“Currently, there is no well-established physical therapy or strengthening exercise for the treatment of crouch gait,” Agrawal notes.

Heakyung Kim, A. David Gurewitsch Professor of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics at the Columbia University Medical Center, who treats these patients, added “Feedback from the parents and children involved in this study was consistent. They reported improved posture, stronger legs, and faster walking speed, and our measurements bear that out. We think that our robotic TPAD training with downward pelvic pull could be a very promising intervention for these children.”

The researchers are planning more clinical trials, to test a larger group and changing more variables. They are also considering studying children with hemiplegic/quadriplegic CP.

Click here to view the research paper.

ep.236: IASP 2016: Prostheses and Finding Shoes, with Vadim Kotenev and Vagan Martirosyan

Audrow Nash — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 15:43:22 +0000

Credit: sk.ru

In this episode, Audrow Nash and Christina Brester conduct interviews at the 2016 International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation conference in Moscow, Russia. They speak with Vadim Kotenev of Rehabot and Motorica about prosthetic hands and rehabilatative devices; and Vagan Martirosyan, CEO of TryFit, a company that uses robotic sensors to help people find shoes that fit them well.

An image of one of the rehabilitative devices from Rehabot.

The robotic platform that scans your feet from TryFit.

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EduExo: Robotic exoskeletons for everyone

Volker Bartenbach — Mon, 22 May 2017 14:06:43 +0000

For decades robotic exoskeletons were the subject of science fiction novels and movies. But in recent years, exoskeleton technology has made huge progress towards reality and exciting research projects and new companies have surfaced.

Typical applications of today’s exoskeletons are stroke therapy or support of users with a spinal cord injury, or industrial applications, such as back support for heavy lifting or power tool operation. And while the field is growing quickly, it is currently not easy to get involved. Learning materials or exoskeleton courses or classes are not widely available yet. This has made it difficult, as learning about exoskeletons is not possible by theory alone, but ideally, involves practical hands-on experience (feel it understand it). Unfortunately, the necessary exoskeleton hardware is expensive and not usually available to students or hobbyists wanting to explore the field.

This is the motivation behind the EduExo kit, a 3D-printable, Arduino-powered robotic exoskeleton now on Kickstarter. The goal of the project is to make exoskeleton technology available, affordable and understandable for anyone interested.

The EduExo is a robotic exoskeleton kit that you assemble and program yourself. The kit contains all the hardware you need to build an elbow exoskeleton. An accompanying handbook contains a tutorial that will guide you through the different assembly steps. In addition, the handbook provides background information on exoskeleton history, functionality and technology to offer a well-rounded introduction to the field.

The kit is being developed for the following users:

High school and college students who want to learn about robotic exoskeleton technology to prepare themselves for a career in exoskeletons and wearable robotics.
Makers and hobbyists who are looking for an interesting and entertaining project in a fascinating field.
Teachers and professors who want to set up exoskeleton courses or labs. The EduExo classroom set provides additional teaching material to facilitate the preparation of a course.

The main challenge of the project was to design exoskeleton hardware that is both cheap enough to be affordable for a high school student, but still complex enough to be an appropriate learning platform that teaches relevant and state of the art exoskeleton technology.

To lower the price, mostly off-the-shelf components are used. The hardware is a simple one degree of freedom design for the elbow joint. The EduExo box comes fully equipped and contains the handbook, exoskeleton structure, preassembled cuffs, an Arduino Microcontroller to control the device, a force sensor (and amplifier) to measures the human-robot interaction, a servo motor for the actuation and all the small parts needed to assemble and wire the exoskeleton.

The exoskeleton’s structure is 3D printable and users with access to a 3D printer can produce the parts themselves. Therefore, a maker edition is available for people who prefer doing everything themselves.

The software required to program the exoskeleton and to create computer games can be downloaded for free (Arduino IDE to program the Microcontroller and the Unity 3D game engine).

Despite the comparatively simple design, the EduExo will teach its users many interesting aspects of exoskeleton technology. This includes how the mechanical design resembles the human anatomy, how to connect the sensors and the electronics board, and how to design and program an exoskeleton control system. Further, it explains how to connect the exoskeleton to a computer and learn how to use it as a haptic device in combination with a self-made virtual reality simulation or computer game.

A ‘muscle control’ extension is offered separately that explains how to measure the exoskeleton user’s muscle activity and use it to control the device.

The development of the kit is currently in its final phase and it is already possible to order it through the ongoing Kickstarter campaign. Shipping is scheduled for August 2017.

Additional information can be found on the EduExo website: www.eduexo.com

Hard at work: A review of the Laevo Exoskeleton

Philip English — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 11:10:32 +0000

Back pain is one of the leading causes of work absenteeism in the UK, with 8.8 million days lost to work-related muscoskeletal disorders per year. On average, each case causes 16 days of absenteeism, and chronic conditions can cause some absences to become permanent.

But working in a bent forward, back straining posture is unavoidable in a great many professions, like in hospital, agricultural and warehouses environments to name but a few. This regular exposure to demanding postures increases the risk of debilitating pain, which can severely reduce productivity and moral in the workforce.

The Laevo Exoskeleton aims to alleviate this problem. The Laevo is a unique, wearable back-support that aids users working in a bent forward posture or lifting objects. The wearable frame carries part of the upper body weight of the user, thereby decreasing the strain on the lower back and improves the long-term employability of employees.

Video 1: The product

Video 2: See it in action

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Soft exosuit economies: Understanding the costs of lightening the load

Wyss Institute — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 10:00:20 +0000

The Harvard team’s exosuit is a wearable robot that directly targets the ankle joints and is made of functional textiles, cable-based actuation and a biologically-inspired control system. In this version, actuation, electronics and battery units (shown on the left) have been off-boarded to better allow the researchers to quantify the exosuit’s energy-saving potential in healthy wearers. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Last year, Harvard’s soft exosuit team provided first proof-of-concept results showing that its wearable robot could lower energy expenditure in healthy people walking with a load on their back. Made of functional textiles, cable-based actuation and a biologically-inspired control system, the exosuit targets specific leg joints – instead of the full leg – and delivers assistance that is synchronized with the wearer’s walking mechanics in individuals ranging from people that carry heavy loads to people that are disabled by stroke or other health complications.

The team is led by Conor Walsh, a Wyss Institute Core Faculty member, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab.

But the question still remained. What is the effect of increasing assistance levels on the overall energy savings to wearers? These savings are the result of the energy spared due to the assistive force provided to the ankle motions, and this must be balanced with the additional energy expended by the wearer when carrying the exosuit’s mass.

Now, in a new study published as the cover article in Science Robotics, Walsh’s multidisciplinary team of roboticists, engineers, biomechanics experts and apparel designers isolated the beneficial effects of the exosuit. By removing the actuation, electronics and battery units, leaving only the exosuit’s light wearable textiles and pulling cables, the researchers were able to calculate the impact on the wearers’ joints. The study is selected as the cover article of the issue.

“In a test group of seven healthy wearers, we clearly saw that the more assistance provided to the ankle joints, the more energy the wearers could save with a maximum reduction of almost 23% compared to walking with the exosuit powered-off,” said Walsh. “To our knowledge, this is the highest relative reduction in energy expenditure observed to date with a tethered exoskeleton or exosuit.”

Interestingly, the team found that wearers significantly adapted their gait with increasing levels of assistance. The changes were most significant at the ankle joint but also at the hip as the exosuit included straps coupling the assistance from the back of the lower legs to the front of the hip in a beneficial manner.

“Other studies had reported that there can be an energy transfer between the ankle and other joints. However, by having a textile couple the ankle and hip with our soft exosuit, may have amplified this effect, contributing to the considerable energy savings we found,” said Brendan Quinlivan, a graduate student working with Walsh and one of the two first-authors on the study.

The exosuit’s soft textiles strategically position the actuating cables that assist with the ankle motion at the back of the lower legs and, through additional straps, transfer energy produced at the ankle to the front of the hip to also assist with the gait’s hip motion. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

The authors acknowledge that future studies are now required to compare the effects of fully body-worn versions of the exosuit, with the weight of the actuation and battery carried by the wearer, to walking with normal clothes to better quantify the true impact of the technology.

“This study represents another major step forward along a path that will bring this new type of ‘wearable robot’ into the marketplace where it will help soldiers and workers, as well as patients with disabilities,” said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard SEAS.“The results from this study will help us find a sweet spot between the added system weight and the amount of force applied to achieve maximum benefits in energy expenditure in wearers. Defining these interdependencies in healthy people will ultimately also help us design versions suitable for people with gait abnormalities,” said Sangjun Lee, who also is a graduate student in Walsh’s team and a co-first author of the study.

The multi-disciplinary study was supported by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Warrior Web Program, the National Science Foundation, a Samsung Scholarship, the São Paulo Research Foundation and the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

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ep.225: A Wearable Robotic Extra-Finger for Grasp Compensation, with Domenico Prattichizzo

Audrow Nash — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 04:03:09 +0000

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Domenico Prattichizzo, Professor of Robotics at the University of Siena and Senior Scientist at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genova in Italy, about a device for assisting people who have lost the use of one of their hands, for example by a stroke. The device is an extra finger that functions to press an object into the paralyzed hand so that it can be grasped.

A video of the device being used for various tasks is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spAXDXLCsKw&list=PLfYZRHo5ca5asEeY8b66xJ1ZuX3SFlCpR&index=1

Domenico Prattichizzo

Since 2015, Prattichizzo has been a Full Professor at the University of Siena. From 2002 to 2015, he was an Associate Professor of Robotics at the University of Siena. Since 2009, Prattichizzo has been a Scientific Consultant at Istituto Italiano di Tecnoloogia, in Genova, Italy. In 1994, he was a Visiting Scientist at the MIT AI Lab. Prattichizzo received his M.S. degree in Electronics Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Robotics and Automation from the University of Pisa in 1991 and 1995, respectively.

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ep.216: ExoAtlet: Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation, with Ekaterina Bereziy

Audrow Nash — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 19:49:50 +0000

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Ekaterina Bereziy, Founder and CEO of ExoAtlet, about exoskeletons for the disabled and for rehabilitation.

Transcript below.

The ExoAtlet Exoskeleton assists people with full or partial lower body paralysis, as well as people with muscle weakness to perform a walking gait. This has been shown to improve blood pressure, decrease muscles and bone degeneration, and prevent urological diseases and disorders. In addition to walking, the ExoAtlet exoskeleton can be used to go up and down stairs. Lastly, ExoAtlet is experimenting with using electrodes to stimulate the contraction of people’s muscles as a way of improving their fitness.

ExoAtlet is one of many robotics companies working with Skolkovo, an innovation cluster based in Moscow, Russia. Skolkovo provides these companies with resources and expertise to encourage their success.

Below is the video of a man walking down the aisle to be married in an ExoAtlet Exoskeleton.

Ekaterina Bereziy

Ekaterina Bereziy is the Founder and CEO of ExoAtlet. She studied Mechanics and Mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University and has a Master’s in Business Administration from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

Links:

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Audrow: Hi, welcome to Robots Podcast, can you introduce yourself?

Ekaterina: My name is Ekaterina Berez. I am the co-founder of ExoAtlet, an exoskeleton for rehabilitation.

Audrow: Can you tell me a bit about ExoAtlet?

Ekaterina: ExoAtlet started at 2014. We developed our project for 2 years, but that is not the only time that we had together. The team joined with this type of development 15 years ago. ExoAtlet is the result of our investigations from 15 years. Now, we have the first version of the exoskeleton that provides the rehabilitation for people with their injuries. The next generation of ExoAtlet will provide the possibility to work for people after strokes.

Audrow: You mentioned the team has been working for 15 years. Where has this taken place?

Ekaterina: In the Damascus State University laboratory, a mechanical and robotic laboratory. We developed a lot of different kind of robots, and they started up the World Festival of Robotics for students and for PhDs. They worked for different kind of system controls for wheels robots and for walking robots. The exoskeleton was one of the ideas that they had for this for years. As the technical solutions have been providing good for making the kind of provides so the ideas to develop the exoskeleton for this exact idea (like rehabilitation) has been implemented and we started the company and conducting it like a commercial product.

Audrow: What stage of development are you currently at? Do you have users?

Ekaterina: We finished the certification process in the Russian market, so it means that we have the certified product that we start to sell 2 months ago. It’s the first product that we developed, but we have the second one that is on R&D stage. It will be more complicated or with the more complicated system control that provides the initiation of the movement. When the person can initiate by his own leg, the movement of the ExoAtlet. It provides the help only to make a step. The person controls it by his own muscles. It’s a great idea, and I mean that it’s a great implementation of an idea. The solution is very interesting. We will implement the control of the power of engines. It means that we will provide MDs to control-

Audrow: What is NMD?

Ekaterina: MD, just medical doctors. We will provide for medical doctors through their implication that we will help them to decrease their assistance of the ExoAtlet for the patients who can work, who can already make steps by themselves. To provide them less help. Then to make them work during the training.

Audrow: Almost like an exercise or rehabilitation. Now, about Skolkovo, how you are related to them?

Ekaterina: Skolkovo Foundation is the government fund that provides help for startups. We started to the member of Skolkovo in 2014 as we started up the company. We are working on this Skolkovo robotic sensor now in the territory of this center.

Audrow: That territory is basically a campus that startups work at?

Ekaterina: Yeah, it looks like a campus and the robotics startups have facilities to make engineering product types, and work with equipment to try and prove some concepts. Also, Skolkovo has their IP center that helps us a lot with our intellectual property and to issue patents. Skolkovo provides a lot of services for startups.

Now they have good infrastructure for the kind of startups who has a great idea, but not a lot of stuff to have goods or to have the specialist for each kind of idea, for implementation. I mean, for example, the PR support is one of the most important things for startups, because it’s necessary to get feedback from the market, and to involve the development process from the market, people who are close for example, in order to implement this idea in real life.

The PR solutions are really cool. And for us it was helpful. Some key medical doctors work with us now, and who made very important clinical trials for us. We have a connection with them, because of the PR support of Skolkovo team. Also, we need funding. It’s investors who can provide their investments for developing the product. Skolkovo has their own Skolkovo fund that is government money. It’s a grant money that they can provide the startups to support some ideas that are very innovative. Maybe too much innovative for the venture capitalist. Skolkovo provides the grant money for the first stage of development to prove this kind of concepts, and next step is to invest. It’s great support.

Audrow: Would you describe the ExoAtlet exoskeleton?

Ekaterina: The first version of ExoAtlet is the exoskeleton for rehabilitation people with the spinal cord injury. We make clinical trials with different kinds of level of spinal cord injury even with very high level. It works. Now, we have 2 models. There is one for hospitals, and for working for medical doctors with the patients, with the different kind of patients. I mean with the height of 160 centimeters.

Audrow: Okay, so about 5’2 to 6’2.

Ekaterina: The weight is about 100 kilos, maybe up to 120 kilos of the patient for hospitals to use. Another model is for personal using at home. The ExoAtlet is adjustable, it’s easy to fix the exact lenses of the part of legs.

Audrow: What does it look like, before we talk about adjusting legs.

Ekaterina: It’s just like the external skeleton. External metal parts that fixes to the legs and to the upper part of the body. With the cells that you can put in your shoes and the person can put it on in a sitting position.

Audrow: It has rigid components that go along with the legs on the outside of the leg?

Ekaterina: Yes, exactly.

Audrow: Then a foot insert that goes into the sole or goes with the sole of your shoe. There is a component that the user wears that’s sitting about at their lower back?

Ekaterina: Yes.

Audrow: They are strapped in by various straps that you pull? Kind of like snowboard boot straps.

Ekaterina: Yes, it looks like the snowboard boot straps. It’s very easy to strap it and fix it.

Audrow: You mentioned adjustable.

Ekaterina: Yes. It’s adjustable. We have a lot of adjustments because all people have different measurements.

Audrow: How does this exoskeleton compare to the exoskeletons of similar companies?

Ekaterina: Most of the skeleton for rehabilitation tried to solve the same problem. It’s to give an easy way to stand up, to start the walking movement, and provide walking steps to speed up the rehabilitation process. The differences in engineering solution, in some plugins, and in that way the exoskeleton works. I mean some of them, for example, have the initiation of the movement. It means that the patient with the not completely damaged spinal cord can initiate the moment. Or, for example, some of the exoskeletons can’t help with standing up to a totally disabled person. It means that they don’t have good parts, or good motors to help the person to stand.

They can make movements and make steps when the person is already in vertical position. Most of the exoskeleton needs crutches. It’s because the patient using the exoskeleton needs to keep their balance. The only way to keep their balance is to have the third points that you can get with a crutch.

Audrow: In our conversation earlier you mentioned you can use your exoskeleton on stairs?

Ekaterina: Yes. Normally in the rehabilitation process medical doctors don’t use stairs, but if we see or if we talk about the people of the stroke, for them they are going up and down stairs. It’s one of the exercises that improves and speeds up the rehabilitation process. Also for the person using it we need to go up and down the stairs because we have a lot of stairs in our surroundings. Normally to go out of the apartment you need to go down the stairs. If we talk about the personal use for people who, for example, has a totally damaged spinal cord, it means that it’s rather difficult to have a hope to reconstruct to start working by themselves.

It means that this kind of exoskeleton will provide them help in walking. Of course, we need to go up and down the stairs and stairs are different with the different heights of the steps, and it means that you should adjust the height of the step according to the stairs. It’s a very important thing.

Audrow: Is this something that the user needs to adjust or is there any sensing onboard that tells how high the steps are by itself, and then adjusts how large of the step it will have to take?

Ekaterina: Now it has sensors, but it works with the stairs, but sometimes you need just to step towards the obstacle. It means there are different kinds of obstacles, and sometimes you need to set up yourself like a pilot, the exact height to make a step. The situations are different. We have a variety of possible adjustments.

Audrow: The step parts and those types of things. To step higher or lower, further, shorter.

Ekaterina: Yeah. Of course, different people have different ways of walking. Some of us have very high steps. For example, normally for us to make high steps, but others make very short and low steps. We can adjust it, and not with the program is plug in the computer and do it once and for years. Now you can adjust exact minutes just by changing parameters in the application.

Audrow: Now, what kind of actuators are on the exoskeleton? It has electric motors?

Ekaterina: Yes.

Audrow: Where are they? Tell me a bit about them.

Ekaterina: They are in the upper parts of the leg.

Audrow: They are at the hip and the knee, correct?

Ekaterina: The knee yes, but they’re just a little bit higher. It works, yes. It moves with the knee joint and the hip joint, so 4 of them, because we have 4 joints. It works with batteries that are set up also onboard. It’s about 6 hours that you can walk.

Audrow: That is a long time. About 6 hours of regular use?

Ekaterina: Yes. Just walking on the normal surfaces. If of course if you will stand up and sit down for 6 hours batteries needs more taxing. You need to charge it.

Audrow: Yes. For sure. What kind of sensors does the exoskeleton have?

Ekaterina: It’s a lot of sensors that helps to get diverse composition.

Audrow: Skill accelerometers and gyroscopes to do some sort of status on this?

Ekaterina: Yeah. We have all of them, and we have some sensors for initiation to get information that it will be initiation of movement by their leg.

Audrow: Would that force sensors?

Ekaterina: It’s force sensors and mind sensors.

Audrow: The mind sensors are very interesting, but the force sensors, where are they in the exoskeleton? Is it on the feet?

Ekaterina: It’s on the feet, yes. It’s on the strips.

Audrow: On the strips; what do you mean?

Ekaterina: I mean that it’s onboard of the ExoAtlet.

Audrow: It’s on the component like along the legs? Sensing the amount twerk at the motor, at each joint basically? So what do you use that information for?

Ekaterina: For system control. To make more comfortable for a person, because when you wear anything that provides some movement you need to be comfortable. It’s one of the great problem how to provide comfort for person that can’t do specific moments. It’s huge that should fit well to make the comfortable moments.

Audrow: You also use the 4 sensors, so the ones in the feet in this kind of thing or the ones in the feet to help the user to walk by themselves, correct? You determine where the weight is loaded and then you decided if you can step or not? Is this the approach?

Ekaterina: It works like this. We have mind stimulation system also.

Audrow: I want to get to that after, but just to see if I understand the force sensors it’s basically if I have my weight on my right leg then I know I can move my left leg kind of thing. The force sensor would determine that I have my weight on my right leg, so then my left leg moves. Is this how it works?

Ekaterina: One of the solutions can be like this. We have a little bit different solution. It does matter. This kind of technical details they are very our specifics. This kind of idea can work. It means that you need to make the system control, but will provide the most natural pattern of walking. From bio-mechanical point of view you can do it like a normal person. This is the goal. There are different kinds of system controls that use their data from sensors, from their voice sensors, from their food on these trips, on the different points of the leg, because it means that the angles and so on. You can get the exact information of the movement that is in the second, and provide by the drives the next phase of movement.

Audrow: Electromyogram sensors sense the electric potential on the skin, and this potential increases when things like a muscle flexes. If I flex my muscle we can detect this with an electromyogram, a myogram sensor on it. You are using this for control of the exoskeleton as well?

Ekaterina: No, we use the myostimulation systems. It’s a multiple control system. It’s for stimulating, for additional stimulation of muscles. For example, who have the people who have damaged spinal, completely damaged spinal cord, we can provide them walking, but we can’t make their muscles work during this process, because their spinal cord is completely damaged, and there is no signal. It means that we can stimulate their legs muscles, and it’s like the stimulation of the normal walking process of muscles during the walking.

Audrow: Are you electrocuting the muscle in order to stimulate it?

Ekaterina: Yeah. We put on the skin the electrodes, and we will provide their electrical nodes to the muscles through the skin. It makes muscles work.

Audrow: It’s like when you are shocked. When you get shocked somehow, and all of your muscles contract. It’s like that kind of thing, but you are using those deliberately to help the user to walk?

Ekaterina: Yeah. It doesn’t help to the walking process, but it helps muscles to reconstruct their function, because we provide the signal, the electro stimulation signal to exact muscle that must work on this phase of walking.

Audrow: How much voltage are you applying to the, I mean is it allowed? Does it hurt?

Ekaterina: No. It doesn’t hurt. It can be just from the very low that you as a normal person would never feel, but the muscle will be on the strong physical condition. It’s adjustable. It’s there. It’s one of the very complicated parts of physical therapy. It’s normally implemented during physical therapy programs. Now medical doctors use it in the position when the person laid on the sofa for example, and they do this kind of mind stimulation without movements. We implemented to the exoskeleton, and combined it with the steps. We use the information of the angles from the joints and provide to the system, the control mind stimulation and elector signals.

Audrow: Has this approach been proven to be beneficial to do the steps in combination with the electrical stimulation? Is it proven or have you found that the results of doing these 2 things is better than the result of doing either separate?

Ekaterina: Now we have a big investigation. We have the clinical trials that the results of it will be comparing between the ExoAtlet with mind stimulation system. It will be interesting result.

Audrow: What was the second one?

Ekaterina: Local Mob. It’s their rehabilitation. They are very big and very famous rehabilitation equipment. It’s very expensive, so it costs about some hundred thousands dollars. Normally it’s on the rehabilitation centers, because it’s for the big one. It’s with the treadmill and their exoskeleton implemented in this system. It’s proved, and they were a lot of researches and clinical trials that proved this kind of robotic mechanical therapy. In Russian market we have about 75 such kind of machines. Now we have the clinical trials. The idea is to compare their results of 2 weeks of training for patients who can walk a little bit, who can do some steps.

It’s not the people with the completely damaged spinal cord, but it’s the spinal cord damaged injury people who feel their legs, and who can do some steps. We will measure the differences of improvements.

Audrow: I see, and use that to determine the validity of the method. That makes sense. What are the future steps for ExoAtlet?

Ekaterina: We will develop the next version. We are working on it. We are on R&D process, the ExoAtlet for people of the stroke. Then the cerebral palsy is one of the biggest problems that is around the world. We will provide to different exoskeletons to the market.

Audrow: What would you think would be a timeline for this?

Ekaterina: We plan to make a presentation of the ExoAtlet for people of the stroke next summer. It will be summer of 2017. For children with the cerebral palsy it will be the next generation maybe in 2 or 3 years.

Audrow: Do you have any stories or anecdotes of people using your exoskeletons?

Ekaterina: We have one exoskeleton that has been implemented in hospital in the north city of Russia. There is one patient who walks with it almost every day and use it almost every day. One of the really interesting stories that it was his own idea. It wasn’t like a PR idea. He decided to marry, and for him it was very important to stand, but not to sit during this process. He entered the church with his future wife wearing the ExoAtlet and using the ExoAtlet. He made steps with this kind of sound … It’s really so cool. That Saturday morning was very interesting, because he came to his wife, and he provided her his hand and she supported him a little bit, but it was really impressive.

Audrow: Thank you!

ep.215: Human 2.0: Exoskeletons and Orthoses, with Hugh Herr

Audrow Nash — Sat, 20 Aug 2016 04:39:20 +0000

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Hugh Herr, Director of the Biomechatronics Group at MIT. Herr talks about the accident that led to the amputation of both of his legs below the knee and how this shaped his rock climbing and academic career. Herr also discusses orthoses and exoskeletons developed by his research group, as well as the future of bionic technology.

Transcript below.

Among topics discussed is the lower-body exoskeleton below. This exoskeleton is the first lower-body exoskeleton to decreases the user’s energy expenditure when walking (measured by oxygen consumption). It works by assisting the calf muscle and using the body’s joints, rather than heavy mechanical joints. Hugh Herr says, “Subjects noticed that their legs felt heavier and awkward when they took the exoskeleton off.”

Below is a TED talk Hugh Herr gave in 2014. In this talk, Herr describes disability as a failure of technology, he discusses the design of his own prostheses and his lab’s research, and there is a dance performance by Christian Lightner and Adrianne Haslet-Davis, who lost her lower left leg in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Hugh Herr

His research program seeks to advance technologies that promise to accelerate the merging of body and machine, including device architectures that resemble the body’s musculoskeletal design, actuator technologies that behave like muscle, and control methodologies that exploit principles of biological movement. His methods encompass a diverse set of scientific and technological disciplines, from the science of biomechanics and biological movement control to the design of biomedical devices for the treatment of human physical disability.

His research accomplishments in science and technology have already made a significant impact on physically challenged people. The Transfemoral Quasipassive Knee Prosthesis has been commercialized by Össur Inc., and is now benefiting amputees throughhttp://biomech.media.mit.edu/people-hugh-herr/out the world. In 2006, he founded the company iWalk Inc. to commercialize the Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis and other bionic leg devices. Professor Herr’s work impacts a number of academic communities. He has given numerous invited and plenary lectures at international conferences and colloquia, including the IVth World Congress of Biomechanics, the International Conference on Advanced Prosthetics, the National Assembly of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, World Economic Forum, Google Zeitgeist, Digital Life Design, and the TEDMED Conference. He is Associate Editor for the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, and has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Experimental Biology, the International Journal of Robotics Research, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, and the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences. He has been invited to participate in joint funding proposals from other universities and corporations, and has served on research review panels including the National Institute of Health, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2007, He was presented with the 13th Annual Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment. His work has been featured by various national and international media, including Scientific American Frontiers, Technology Review, National Geographic, the History Channel, and CNN.

Links:

The transcript is edited for clarity.

Hugh Herr:
My name is Hugh Herr and I’m a professor at MIT. I co-direct the Center for Extreme Bionics. I also am the founder of a company called BionX Medical Technologies.

Audrow Nash:
Can you tell me a bit about how you have lost your legs from the knee down?

Hugh Herr:
I was an avid mountain climber. I started mountain climbing when I was seven years old. When I was in my early teenage years I was considered a child prodigy in climbing. When I was seventeen I was out with my climbing partner at the time. Our goal was to climb Mt. Washington in the winter by ascending Huntington’s Ravine, which is about an eight hundred foot, very steep ice wall. We ascended very quickly the eight hundred foot wall, and then decided to continue towards the summit. The weather conditions got worse and worse. Even though we went just five minutes above the head-wall of Huntington Ravine, we were not able to retrace our tracks and we descended the mountain.

By the time we got to tree line it was clear that we had gone off course, but we were stuck at that point. We really didn’t have the rational choice of retracing our tracks and going towards the summit. At that point, wind speeds were so high that one could not even stand. We were forced to go down this ravine system, it’s called the Great Gulf Region. It’s the wilderness side of Mt. Washington. It was there that we spent several days in most extreme bushwhacking that one can imagine. The average depth of snow was to the waist. Sometimes it was to the chest. We were just simply trapped in a white maze.

We dug in when we were not able to move any more out of exhaustion by creating kind of these snow caves. During the day we would walk. We would probably make two miles of progress in a complete kind of marathon effort in the deep snow. We made it within a few miles of the roadway and then couldn’t walk anymore because of severe frostbite. We were later discovered, or found by a person out snowshoeing for the day, and we were plucked from the mountain via helicopter and then treated for severe frostbite and hypothermia.

Audrow Nash:
Then, so from there because of the severe frostbite you had both of your legs amputated from the knee down?

Hugh Herr:
That’s right. After a few months of effort by my medical team to “save” my biological limbs, they were amputated. We were on the mountain late January. My legs were amputated mid-March.

Audrow Nash:
Afterwards, you wanted to return to rock climbing. You were told otherwise, though.

Hugh Herr:
Yeah. I didn’t know what I would be able to do with my new body, and my father said, “If you want to climb, you should climb.” I really had no clear examples of what life would be using prostheses. My limbs are amputated. I went through about a month or two of healing, and then I was fitted with my first pair of artificial limbs. I was shocked at their lack of technological sophistication. They were actually made of plaster of Paris and it was recommended that I not walk without canes or crutches because the limbs might actually break. They were kind of these crazy trainer limbs. The first weekend I went home from the rehabilitation center they didn’t allow me to take my legs because they knew what I was capable of. The next weekend they were stupid enough to allow me to take my legs and I went climbing with my brother, Tony.

Audrow Nash:
How did you begin to adjust your prosthetic limbs for climbing and various purposes?

Hugh Herr:
I quickly abandoned the notion that the limbs needed to look human, and I quickly focused on function. I thought to myself what would be optimal designs for the vertical world of rock and ice climbing. What emerged was a series of different feet for rock and ice surfaces, so feet that could stand on small rock edges the width of a coin, feet that could wedge into rock fissures even where the human foot could not penetrate, feet that could penetrate ice walls. I made my legs exceedingly lightweight to increase my strength to weight ratio. Through design, I was able to etch out a few advantages. There were disadvantages, but I gained enough advantages that it was only twelve months after my limbs were amputated that I was climbing better with artificial limbs than I’d ever achieved with normal biological limbs before the accident.

Audrow Nash:
How did you transition into academia from this, and how did you know that that is the way you should pursue, or continue?

Hugh Herr:
To be honest, the men in my family, my father and brothers and grandfathers, were in the business of construction. Given how uncomfortable artificial limbs were at the time, I couldn’t imagine being on a construction site for the rest of my life. I also couldn’t imagine being on the construction site for the rest of my life. I decided to go to college, which I’d never plan to do. My intent was to be the best climber in the world before the accident. I went to college and I signed up for very basic math courses and computer science courses. I developed an extraordinary passion for the topics and couldn’t stop studying. I just absolutely loved the material. It’s interesting because science and a passion for science and math actually replaced somewhat my passion for climbing mountains.

Audrow Nash:
Then you began to apply what you were learning to your own prostheses with what you were learning? When did you start doing that?

Hugh Herr:
I did have the goal of continuing to design prostheses. The experience of designing new climbing legs and succeeding so wildly beyond everyone’s expectation, including my own, was very inspirational for me. I realized the power of technology to heal, to rehabilitate, even to extend human capability beyond innate capabilities. That was also a clear motivation in my acquisition of knowledge and going back to school. My first patent was obtained, issued very close to the time when I was graduating from undergraduate school in physics. It was on the mechanical interface between the residuum and the artificial limb. The idea was to use fluid bladders in certain configurations. I later proposed to my future MIT advisor that I would build this interface and have actuation pumps and pressure sensing and continually modulate the pressure field around the residuum.

Audrow Nash:
On the spot where the prosthetic limb interfaces with the residual limb is what you’re talking about?

Hugh Herr:
Yes.

Audrow Nash:
So you would use some sort of fluid to make a vacuum so that it would stay very well attached?

Hugh Herr:
Yes, a vacuum offering suspension, but also offering loading support.

Audrow Nash:
Loading support.

Hugh Herr:
A pressure field that would be very comfortable around the end of the limb, enabling a person to walk without discomfort.

Audrow Nash:
Can you tell me a bit about the prostheses that you’re wearing now?

Hugh Herr:
I’m wearing two bionic legs. Both legs have three microprocessors and twelve sensors. The microprocessors are brains, if you will. The devices control a muscle-like actuator that moves and stiffens and powers my synthetic ankles.

Audrow Nash:
What sensors are on board?

Hugh Herr:
The sensors measure position, speed, acceleration, force and temperature, as well as joint position and speed.

Audrow Nash:
What sensing are you doing, contact with the ground?

Hugh Herr:
No. The device has tendon-like series springs, and also a parallel elasticity. The torque sensing is of the torque that the series elastic actuator sees and the parallel spring sees.

Audrow Nash:
I see.

Hugh Herr:
Either one can produce net torque on a joint.

Audrow Nash:
Can you describe how they look a little bit?

Hugh Herr:
They look interesting. There’s two black batteries that sit on top, and there’s black anodized metal shields coming around the ankle. Then inside those shields are all the electronics and then the motor system. Then attached to that is a synthetic foot made of again, black carbon composite.

Audrow Nash:
What kind of grip on the bottom?

Hugh Herr:
I wear the carbon foot, and glued to that carbon foot is a typical rubber that you’d find on the bottom of a shoe.

Audrow Nash:
What kind of battery life?

Hugh Herr:
We get a few thousand fast walking steps. For me and my lifestyle, that’s fine to get through the day. If one wants to walk say, ten thousand steps, one would just take a spare battery or two. The batteries are modular. You just snap them in like a power tool.

Audrow Nash:
I see. How does this compare to other prostheses?

Hugh Herr:
All other foot/ankle prostheses in the world are human powered, meaning the energy of the human attached to them drives the movement. The legs that I’m wearing are bionic. They inject mechanical energy into a person’s stride in a way that’s similar to what the muscles used to do that were lost on amputation.

Audrow Nash:
Can you talk a bit about how they are fit to your residual limbs?

Hugh Herr:
At MIT I have a team of people thinking about fit. What is the nature of comfort? What are the mathematics of comfort? What is the science of comfort? We build mathematical descriptions of the tissues of the ends of the residuum and theories of how the shape of the structure that comes around the residuum and the stiffness of that shape to optimize comfort. Basically, the end of my limb goes into a cup-like device that supports my weight, and so the shape of that cup is critically important to comfort. We mathematically derive that shape, and then we 3D print the structure.

Audrow Nash:
You’re identifying where there are hard and soft spots in the residual limb so that you can match them or match them with their complement, so soft to hard, hard to soft so that it’s more comfortable?

Hugh Herr:
Yeah. Then what’s very complex is the shape, the equilibrium shape of the synthetic skin, if you will. That’s based on tissue, how compliant the tissues are, that shape. Mathematically we understand the compliance of the tissues in all the regions.

Audrow Nash:
What do you mean, compliance of the tissue?

Hugh Herr:
How soft or how stiff they are.

Audrow Nash:
Okay. What about stretch of say, the skin? Does that apply as well?

Hugh Herr:
In a different way. I wear a second skin silicone liner, so the design of that second skin relates to the skin’s strain field, or the amount of stretch in the skin.

Audrow Nash:
I see. Are they attached by this vacuum principle or how would you attach them to the residual limb?

Hugh Herr:
There’s a number of ways to attach. You can have a pin and a lock at the base of the limb. You can have suction. You can have a sleeve that spans from the biological leg across the socket. There’s a number of ways to hold it on.

Audrow Nash:
What have been some challenges in designing this?

Hugh Herr:
The interface. If you ask a thousand persons with limb amputation what’s the number one problem they want solved, probably all thousand would say the mechanical interface, the mechanical attachment. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable. It’s a very, very important problem. It’s a very complex problem because no one understands what comfort is for any device, or there’d be a shoe or a prosthesis. We’re developing that science, and it’s very exciting. We want to be able to produce sockets that are comfortable. We want to produce them fast at low cost.

Audrow Nash:
What are a means of doing this? You 3D print the part. How do you model the residual limb?

Hugh Herr:
We take an MRI image of the limb, and that tells us where the shape of the bones and where the skin is and where the muscles are. We then use robotic palpation tools to compress the tissues and measure displacement speeds and forces, which tell us the fundamental constants of the tissues. We then build a continuum mechanical model. If you have a mathematical description of the biological segment, you can then apply pressure fields. The model will tell you how the tissues deform. Then we define particular tissue deformations that are healthy and comfortable.

Audrow Nash:
Is the goal is to make this cheap and replicable for the general person?

Hugh Herr:
Yeah. My vision of the future is that each human individual will have a digital representation of their body. When they need any type of a bionic device, that digital body will be used to compute an optimal personalized bionic device for the human.

Audrow Nash:
This can refer to clothing as well.

Hugh Herr:
Correct. Clothing, shoes, bras, bike seats, bionic limbs, exoskeletons, neural implants that go inside the body. Everything will be personalized.

Audrow Nash:
Everything is optimized, and this relies heavily on 3D printing or additive manufacturing?

Hugh Herr:
3D printing is a tool. It’s not the dominant science. That is to say, one could build these interfaces with molding processes and not using digital fabrication. Digital fabrication is sometimes nice because it reduces the fabrication frequency, but it’s not necessary. It’s not the secret sauce.

Audrow Nash:
What’s the role of industry and academia in producing these prostheses?

Hugh Herr:
As stated, I’m a professor. The typical model of a professor in the US is they receive some type of grant monies and they conduct research with a team comprising both staff and students. There are inventions. Patents are filed. Patents are owned by the university. The university then licenses the intellectual property to founders of a company. Those founders can be the professors and students that invented, and often that’s the model, the most successful model of translation. In my case that’s exactly what happened. There was patents generated. I’m the inventor. My students are the inventors. A company’s established and then there’s a contractual relationship between the company and the university, licensing the IP within a certain domain of use. That’s what was done with my company, BionX Medical Technologies.

Audrow Nash:
What role does the company play in developing the technology?

Hugh Herr:
At university we do science. We do research that’s publishing. We test hypotheses. We do things that have never been done before, never been tested before. At the company, basically crude prototypes that we build at the university are commercialized. What that means is getting them light enough, most important strong enough, durable enough, manufacturable, at the right price point. Then all the sales and clinical services necessary to distribute that product globally.

Audrow Nash:
What does it look like when someone puts on the BiOM ankle for the first time?

Hugh Herr:
The design in the ankle is biomimetic, inspired by nature, by the human body. The algorithms that are running on these small computers on the ankles control the motor as if the motor were made of muscles and tendon and the whole structure was bone and whatnot. The whole thing moves as if it was made of flesh and bone, even though it’s made of synthetics. Because of that, when it’s fit to a human, the human is used to those dynamics, so there’s little to no training required. Often in minutes the person is saying things like they have their life back, they have their leg back, and they’re either crying out of happiness or laughing out of happiness. It’s fun to go to these fittings, actually.

Audrow Nash:
I’d like to move into talking about exoskeletons. First, would you define what an exoskeleton is and then tell us how it relates to your work with prostheses.

Hugh Herr:
My definition of an exoskeleton is a device that attaches to the body, intimately to the body, that augments physicality. What I mean by augments, it enables a human being to do something that’s beyond natural capability for an innate, healthy body. The word orthoses is a medical term for a robot that attaches to the body that enables a person with a disability or some condition to move more naturally. Exoskeletons are wearable robots that augment.

Audrow Nash:
Can you tell me a bit about metabolic cost as a parameter for designing exoskeletons?

Hugh Herr:
One goal in exoskeletal design is to augment a human by pedal locomotion. An excellent metric of evaluation is the amount of food energy a person requires when using the exoskeleton versus not using the exoskeleton. Why? My view is that if the exoskeleton increases energy levels of the human, the human won’t want to use it. It won’t have sufficient value. It’s a very important metric of evaluation.

Audrow Nash:
Basically they’ll discard it and not use it if the metabolic cost is higher than the task, or higher than it would be to accomplish otherwise?

Hugh Herr:
You know, unless they want to get exercise. If they want to actually be augmented and enhance physicality, no they won’t use it.

Audrow Nash:
How do you measure this?

Hugh Herr:
Typically for aerobic exercise it’s measured by monitoring how much oxygen a person uses when they breathe and how much carbon dioxide is expelled. With those two rates one can compute the calories burned per unit of time.

Audrow Nash:
Would you describe the exoskeleton used to decrease metabolic costs for walking?

Hugh Herr:
The first exoskeleton that was envisioned and published in the world that I’m aware of was in the nineteenth century, over a hundred years ago. It was a Russian inventor called Jagen. His dream was to augment the Russian Army, Russian soldiers. It wasn’t until 2014 that someone succeeded in building an exoskeleton that augments walking and running. My group was the first to accomplish that goal. It’s an exoskeleton that spans the foot and comes up about mid-calf, just below the knee. Fundamentally it’s an artificial calf muscle. The calf muscle is the most important muscle in bi-pedal walking. It supplies about eighty percent of the power to walk. It’s where humans are most inefficient, so the exoskeleton adds an artificial calf muscle and injects energy into the gait like a calf muscle to reduce the metabolic cost of the biological calf.

Audrow Nash:
What does it look like and what kind of actuators are you using?

Hugh Herr:
The actuators are electric based. It looks very interesting. It’s like, this crazy structure, this crazy shoe that goes higher than is normal and has these springy struts that go up on the side of the leg, and then a motor that sits on kind of a shin guard that pulls on that strut and powers movement.

Audrow Nash:
Yes, and so it’s using some sort of tether and you’re pulling that, and that’s how you flex the calf to augment walking?

Hugh Herr:
Flex the ankle, yes.

Audrow Nash:
You’re using the body as its own joint for this. Correct?

Hugh Herr:
It’s very important that exoskeletons are very, very, very light weight. Whenever you add weight to the legs, metabolic cost increases. In an effort to reduce the weight or the mass of the device, we actually use the body’s joints as the bearing instead of putting a synthetic bearing in the device.

Audrow Nash:
What kind of sensing is done with the device?

Hugh Herr:
All the electronics are up high by design so you can walk through a deep, deep puddle of water and not affect the system. We measure positions and speeds and accelerations, essentially. Then from those data we can compute torques, forces, given a model of the structure.

Audrow Nash:
You can infer where the person is in their gait and then determine if you should pull to assist the gap?

Hugh Herr:
Essentially.

Audrow Nash:
Why did you choose to revolve around the ankle?

Hugh Herr:
Again because the calf muscle is the most important muscle in walking.

Audrow Nash:
Are there other advantages to it as well, being that there’s not so much squishy …

Hugh Herr:
Yeah. The shin bone is where the leg is most stiff, most rigid, and it’s a tremendous plate of bone to apply forces on from an exoskeleton.

Audrow Nash:
Can you only use this for walking? Could someone use it for running or other activities?

Hugh Herr:
The device is very versatile. It’s powered, it has smart computation, so yes you can walk, run up and down hills, whatever you want to do. It’s as versatile as the human leg itself.

Audrow Nash:
What kind of efficiency gains are we getting?

Hugh Herr:
There’s a number of peer-reviewed manuscripts. Again, we were the first in 2014 to augment the human in a peer review publication. That first publication, the human subjects were wearing a twenty-three kilogram backpack and we augmented by eight percent. We later conducted a separate study on unloaded humans, just regular walking, and augmented by an average ten percent. The variation is huge, so you have N subjects. Some subjects are as high as almost thirty percent, some are low, and everything in between.

Audrow Nash:
What do you believe creates that variation?

Hugh Herr:
It’s a really interesting question. No one really knows, but everyone in the field has observed this phenomenon, that when you put a single exoskeletal design on N people, you get huge variation. My belief is you take ten people and you could distribute them in terms of athletic capability. Some people have a very smart spinal cord and they can exploit any tool or device very, very quickly. Others are clueless. That’s a possibility where training may be effective to mitigate that variance.

Audrow Nash:
Now, people that use it, what do they say it feels like?

Hugh Herr:
The human body is extraordinary, so a person begins to use it, they very quickly … Initially they feel the energy that it provides, but very quickly the human body gets used to it. Then you take it off and you kind of stumble, and your own biological normal legs feel heavy, awkward and slow. This tells us that wearing bionic structures will just be commonplace in the future, and innate, normal bodies will just be boring.

Audrow Nash:
Now, what kind of upper limit do you think we can get on efficiency with this device?

Hugh Herr:
With the foot/ankle device it’s not known. I would say at least twenty-five percent, but it may be even higher, which is very, very exciting.

Audrow Nash:
Then will you benefit, you think, from augmenting other muscles or other movements?

Hugh Herr:
We don’t know. What’s intriguing is our recent paper on the device. What’s intriguing is when you add exoskeletal torque and power at the ankle, not only do you reduce the power requirements of the biological ankle, but also you reduce the power requirements of the knee and hip. Even though the exoskeleton doesn’t span the knee and hip we nonetheless, reduce muscular effort at those joints tremendously. It begs the question do you really need an exoskeleton that spans the whole leg, or is the foot/ankle sufficient?

Audrow Nash:
Why would you think that it decreases the expenditure at those muscles?

Hugh Herr:
It’s just the dynamics of the system. The body, when you give it power, it uses that power distributively across the entire leg in an optimal way. It’s a new gait. It’s a different gait … than normal.

Audrow Nash:
How does it look compared to normal?

Hugh Herr:
It looks normal to an untrained eye. It doesn’t look like a bizarre walk. It is a distinctly new gait. You give the human energy from a bionic structure and the body quickly figures out how to ultimately use that energy to minimize its own metabolic food energy. That’s what humans are really good at. We’re inherently lazy and we minimize energy really, really well. We’re terrible at detecting high stress levels and probabilities of injury. We injure our knee and we’re surprised. We injure our hip and we’re surprised. An incredible value of exoskeletons is to give the human something that they’re bad at. One class of exoskeletons in the future will be exoskeletons that enable us to do athletic performances without a threat of injury.

Audrow Nash:
How would those work?

Hugh Herr:
I don’t know, but they would have to detect high levels of stress and fatigue in biological structures and then tell the human to stop or to move in a different way. Imagine a world where our top athletes never injure. Imagine the impact to human athletic performance. Performance would just go through the roof, because often what mitigates top performance is injury and recovering from injury and not training harder because you might injure, yada, yada, yada.

Audrow Nash:
What other future applications of exoskeletons do you see?

Hugh Herr:
Another form of augmentation is maintaining one’s inherent physicality independent of age. Imagine a world when you run your best marathon time when you’re sixty, and you’ve been running marathons since the age of fifteen. Why? Because you’re a more skilled athlete. As you age, technology eliminates the impact of age related degeneration by neural implants, maybe by regenerative medicine, maybe by exoskeletons or various forms of augmentation. That’s a very palpable form of augmentation. Most people ethically would be fine with that and most people would be excited about maintaining quality of life as they age.

Audrow Nash:
What are some bottlenecks in exoskeletons? What technological bottlenecks are there?

Hugh Herr:
I’m not sure there are technological bottlenecks. I think that largely the components are sufficient. It’s really a problem with design and architecture. The human machine interaction is something that’s unknown, so putting a bionic structure on a human and adapting its control in real time in a kind of human machine optimization is critically important to the future of this area of design. Imagine putting on a device and you just starting to walk and run and it adjusts its behavior to optimize its performance with you in a collaborative effort.

Audrow Nash:
Is this one of your research interests moving forward?

Hugh Herr:
Absolutely.

Audrow Nash:
What are some of your near-term research goals?

Hugh Herr:
I want to do three things first and foremost. One is I want to advance better muscle-like actuators. Perhaps actuators that are better than biological ones, kind of the engine of BionX. I want to understand electrical interface between the peripheral human nervous system and devices, so how to talk to nerve endings, essentially. I also want to understand how to attach machines to the body mechanically in a comfortable way. Those three innovations will really define bionics in this century. If you solve all three, you’re more or less done. You’ve solved bionics, limb bionics that is.

Audrow Nash:
Thanks for being on Robots Podcast.

Hugh Herr:
Thank you.

Indego joins Ekso with FDA exoskeleton approvals

Frank Tobe — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 13:00:00 +0000

Putting on the Indego. Credit: Parker Hannifin Corporation/Flickr.

Indego is the result of 10 years of development by engineers at Vanderbilt University, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In 2012 it was licensed to Parker Hannifin (recently renamed to just Parker) for commercialization and marketing. It is an external skeleton that works by strapping it around the patient’s torso, legs are also strapped with supports from the hips to the knees and from the knees to the feet. Computer-controlled motors act as knee and hip joints. Patients use forearm crutches to keep their balance.

Ekso test pilot and ambassador. Credit Ekso Bionics/Flickr.

The international group of exoskeleton providers with various FDA or CE certifications is growing and currently includes: Ekso in the US; Cyberdyne in the EU and Japan; ExoAtlet from Russia; and Israel’s ReWalk. Other providers are in the process of getting approvals or developing commercial versions of their products, that includes:

Italy’s Wearable Robotics Kinetek
Canada’s Bionik Labs’ ARKE
US Bionics’ SuitX
Rise Robotics’ Exosuit (also from the US)
Thailand’s Medico Robotics Powersuit
Switzerland’s Noonee chairless chair
France’s Wandercraft
Spain’s Technaid Exo-H2
and the UK’s REX Bionics’ mobility device.

Many of these startups are seeking insurance policy and coverage from the related healthcare insurers and agencies in addition to CE and FDA approvals for their devices. Japan’s Health Ministry approved Cyberdyne’s HAL exo suit as a medical device that enables it to be paid by the public health insurance system. Cyberdyne has announced plans to submit a request to the health ministry to make this possible.

Insurance coverage

FDA and CE approvals help insurance review boards rule regarding whether to cover exoskeletons. ReWalk was the first in the US to receive workman’s compensation coverage after multiple challenges and reviews. But general health insurance coverage has been slow to approve these new devices either for personal use or even for rehab sessions prescribed by a doctor.

Source: ReWalk

In February of this year, in what could be a major turning point for people with spinal cord injuries, a medical review board ruled that a health insurance provider is obligated to provide coverage and reimbursement for a $69,500 ReWalk robotic exoskeleton. The unnamed health plan initially denied coverage, but after an independent review board dug into the beneficiary’s case and the current state of exoskeleton technology it ruled that the exoskeleton was “medically necessary.”

The review board determined that the exoskeleton was necessary because it allowed the patient to walk. This ruling implies that walking is not a luxury for patients with spinal injuries, but a right—and that if the technology exists and is mechanically sound, insurance companies must cover them.

ReWalk CEO Larry Jasinski was pleased by the decision stating in a press release:

“Health benefit providers have historically been hesitant to acknowledge the clinical benefits in their case assessments. This ruling, and subsequent coverage and reimbursement, will help ReWalk in our efforts to facilitate greater patient access to the device.”

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Understanding joint impedance with a knee exoskeleton

NCCR Robotics — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 21:27:22 +0000

Testing knee perturbator. Photo source: ETH Zürich, RELab, Stefan Schneller

When designing exoskeletons for rehabilitation of patients after spinal cord injury or stroke, a constant concern is creating them to be as natural as possible to best enable user training to rebuild both muscles and neural networks.

Stefan Schrade from the Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory, RELab, at ETH Zurich and NCCR Robotics, Switzerland, explains how the ETH knee perturbator is exploring the mechanical properties of the human knee and also helping understand how we recover from everyday stumbles.

And here’s a video of one of the experiments.

Bioinspired robotics #3: Wearables, with Conor Walsh

Wyss Institute — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 21:10:24 +0000

Source: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

In the Disruptive Podcast series, Terrence McNally speaks directly with Wyss Institute researchers, exploring what motivates them and how they envision our future as might be impacted by their disruptive technologies. In part 3 of the Disruptive: Bioinspired Robotics episode, Wyss Core Faculty Member Conor Walsh discusses how a wearable robotic exosuit or soft robotic glove could assist people with mobility impairments, as well as how the goal to create real-world applications drives his research approach.

Walsh is the founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab, which brings together researchers from the engineering, industrial design, apparel, clinical and business communities to develop new technologies and translate them to industrial partners. His research focuses on applying disruptive technologies to the development of robotic devices for augmenting and restoring human performance. His current research interests include new approaches to design, manufacture and control of wearable robotic devices and characterizing their performance through biomechanical and physiological studies.

He leads a team of researchers on the DARPA Warrior Web project to develop a soft exosuit that can assist with locomotion that can perform small levels of assistance to a wearer. The exosuit’s function is based on a detailed understanding of human walking and is soft and pliable, unlike traditional exoskeletons that use rigid components. The long term goal is to develop fully portable wearable robots to assist the disabled and able-bodied and further the scientific understanding of how humans interact with such machines.

Source: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

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Body-enhancing exoskeletons could be stepping into industrial trials next year

Horizon Magazine — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 05:31:07 +0000

Researchers are developing an exoskeleton prototype that makes it easier to carry heavy loads. Image courtesy of Robo-Mate.

by Jon Cartwright

Wearable technology uses electric motors and springs to augment the strength and balance of the human body. It has long been the subject of military research, but now engineers believe the technology is advanced enough to find much broader appeal.

‘We’re getting sufficient power for sufficiently low weight,’ said Jan Veneman, a roboticist at Tecnalia Research and Innovation in Donostia, Spain.

Exoskeletons typically consist of a framework that covers a person’s limbs. The framework has joints alongside the person’s own skeletal joints, and these are powered by motors or springs to assist in strength or endurance.

Exoskeletons with motors are more flexible and more powerful, whereas those with springs can be made much lighter, according Konrad Stadler, an engineer at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. Stadler is the technical project manager of the Robo-Mate project, and is working on an exoskeleton that could help manual workers. As part of the EU-funded project, he and his colleagues are designing different exoskeleton ‘modules’ to suit the different tasks carried out by manual workers.

In order to help stimulate innovation in manufacturing, the EU has teamed up with industry and academia in public, private partnerships such as the Partnership for Robotics in Europe and Factories of the Future.

Compression forces

‘Musculoskeletal injuries and disorders are caused by lower back compression forces, which result from the load carried and the worker’s own body weight, as well as the posture of the worker,’ says Stadler.

‘Lifting loads with outstretched arms will produce much larger compression forces in the lower back than lifting the same object close to the body.’

By slipping on a Robo-Mate exoskeleton, a worker trying to carry a heavy object with outstretched arms ought to feel more like he or she is carrying it close to the body. Stadler and colleagues are currently testing a prototype in the lab, and hope to be doing industrial tests next year.

Robo-Mate has made a prototype of an exoskeleton. Image courtesy of Robo-Mate.

But exoskeletons are not all about strength. Veneman is investigating whether exoskeletons can also be used to keep people stable as part of the EU-funded BALANCE project.

The human body normally keeps itself balanced with two mechanisms: altering the stiffness of joints, or moving hands and feet to more stable positions. ‘It is very subtle where you place your foot,’ he explained. ‘If you place it too far, or too close, you can easily lose balance.’

The aim of the BALANCE exoskeleton is to learn how the body does this naturally, and see whether the exoskeleton can assist the body to do the same thing. It is currently in the design stage, but Veneman says the prototype should offer minimal resistance to movement, so that it can follow accurately the movements of healthy and infirm people.

Give a push

Once the system understands the human body’s balancing mechanisms sufficiently well, it should be able to replicate it. In theory, you should be able to give someone wearing the BALANCE prototype a push, and the system will move the person’s feet to stop them falling over.

That will require a rather complex exoskeleton with multiple joints, and sensors that can detect instability.

A simpler exoskeleton, and one with a good chance of commercialisation in the near future, is the one being developed within the EU-funded AXO-SUIT project, which is part of the EU’s Active and Assistive Living programme to enhance quality of life for the elderly. The idea behind AXO-SUIT is to help elderly or infirm people perform basic everyday tasks, such as standing up, walking, reaching and grasping.

The technology behind AXO-SUIT is not dissimilar to that in an electric bike, says project lead coordinator Shaoping Bai of Aalborg University in Denmark. Rather than completely taking over, the motors assist action that the user is already trying to perform, such as bending down to water the plants and standing back up again.

AXO-SUIT is currently at the prototype stage. In about five years, however, Bai hopes that his group will have a commercial version costing between EUR 8 000 and EUR 10 000.

That may sound expensive, but Bai believes the exoskeleton could replace a lot of costly personal care for the elderly. ‘It would be helpful for them to maintain their quality of life while staying at home, rather than move to a care centre,’ he said.

More info

Clinical trials begin for Russia’s first medical exoskeleton

Skolkovo Robotics — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 17:04:30 +0000

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.

https://youtu.be/XOrzXyYvJPE

Japan’s Haneda Airport to deploy 3 types of robots from Cyberdyne

Frank Tobe — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 17:23:00 +0000

View image | gettyimages.com

Cyberdyne, the inventor of the HAL exoskeleton, is expanding their product line and Japan’s Haneda Airport is their first customer.

Three different types of robots will be put to work at the airport:

Industrial-grade floor cleaners will roam and clean carpets and floors along the corridors of the airport.
A waist-based mini-exoskeleton (shown in the top photo) for airport employees charged with moving and lifting baggage and goods. The lumbar support device reads bio-electric signals (BES) and supports the wearer’s motion by moving in accordance with the wearer’s brain signals.
A new mobile porter to carry and deliver passenger luggage and also airport vendor goods. Based on the mobile platform used by the floor cleaner, but supplemented with follow-me and other navigation software, the porter bots will assist passengers and airport staff with heavy luggage and will also deliver goods to airport vendors.

View image | gettyimages.com

The new robots are part of a trial program the airport is sponsoring to improve employee efficiency while also improving their ergonomic experience. Financial incentives are being provided by the Japanese government for the trial as part of its program to showcase Japanese robotics at and during the 2020 Olympics.

“The key goal of the project is to communicate Japan’s technology from Haneda Airport, a doorstep of Japan to the world. Haneda Airport is a hub for domestic flights, and it’s seeing international landing slots expanding, routes expanding and inbound passengers increasing and we have explored ways to take advantage of these characteristics and use the airport as a place where we can showcase the great things in Japan, such as its technology, industry, culture, history, and so on,” said Airport President Isao Takashiro.

If the trial program is successful, the airport and Cyberdyne plan to roll out these robots to other airports in Japan in time for the 2020 Olympics.

Noonee testing Chairless Chair exoskeleton at Audi production plants

NCCR Robotics — Wed, 06 May 2015 18:21:49 +0000

Photo: Courtesy Audi.

Last month, Swiss startup noonee completed the first round of testing for their Chairless Chair with German car manufacturer Audi. The Chairless Chair is a wearable sitting exoskeleton for people working on construction lines that is designed to allow movement while still providing enough support to prevent the repetitive stress and health problems that are so common in this kind of work.

Rather than just providing a chair to sit in, noonee avoids the issue of muscle wastage by designing the exoskeleton to support the wearer in such a way that they continue to use their muscles.

The version of the Chairless Chair tested at Audi is called TITAN, which made out of titanium. The next stage of development will be to create a version manufactured from carbon.

noonee CEO Keith Gunura said, “With the user feedback we collected we are now stepping up development of the Chairless Chair to bring it to an amazing product that provides the support needed while working. Our target is that early Q1 2016 there will be a ready product to push forward the ‘Chair-olution’ to the rest of the world!” noonee is a spin-off from the Swiss NCCR Robotics.

Dr. Mathias Keil, Head of Industrial Engineering Methods at AUDI AG added “With the use of the chairless chair, we are continuously improving ergonomics in assembly operations. We also anticipate new applications for colleagues with reduced physical capabilities.”

Interested companies can register their interest by sending an email.

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Unpowered exoskeleton improves efficiency of human walking

the National Science Foundation (NSF) — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 20:11:18 +0000

Humans have evolved to be incredibly efficient at walking. In fact, simulations of human locomotion show that walking on level ground and at a steady speed should theoretically require no power input at all.

But anyone who works on their feet or has taken an arduous hike knows otherwise. In fact, people expend more energy during walking than any other activity in daily life, and for the elderly and those with mobility issues, that energy can be precious.

For decades, engineers have envisioned systems that could make walking easier. In fact, so many researchers have tried to build unpowered exoskeletons and failed that it was hotly debated in the field whether it was even possible to improve the efficiency of walking without adding an external energy source.

In news reported last week in Nature, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University have demonstrated an unpowered ankle exoskeleton that reduces the metabolic cost of walking by approximately 7 percent. The results are roughly the equivalent of taking off a 10-pound backpack, and are equivalent to savings from exoskeletons that use electrically-powered devices. The research was based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation.

“It’s a real exciting milestone for the field of assistive devices,” said Thomas Roberts, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University and an expert in the biomechanics of locomotion, who was not involved in the research. “They’ve taken an assistive device and lowered the cost of human walking. That’s kind of a big deal because walking is already really cheap, and they did it with a very simple, but clever device.”

The device is the result of eight years of patient and incremental work, mapped out on a whiteboard by Steve Collins and Greg Sawicki when they were graduate students together at the University of Michigan in 2007.

“Walking is more complicated than you might think,” said Collins, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon. “Everyone knows how to walk, but you don’t actually know how you walk.”

Collins, Sawicki and co-author M. Bruce Wiggin succeeded where so many in the past had failed by performing careful analyses of the biomechanics of human walking and then designing a simple, ultra-light-weight device that relieved the calf muscle of its efforts when it wasn’t doing any productive work.

Ultrasound imaging studies had revealed that the calf muscle exerts energy not only when propelling the body forward, but also when it performs a clutch-like action, holding the Achilles tendon taut.

“Studies show that the calf muscles are primarily producing force isometrically, without doing any work, during the stance phase of walking, but still using substantial metabolic energy,” Collins explained. “This is the opposite of regenerative braking. It’s as if every time you push on the brake pedal in your car, you burn a little bit of gas.”

With this insight in mind, the team created an ankle exoskeleton that offloads some of the clutching muscle forces of the calf, reducing the overall metabolic rate.

A mechanical clutch engages when the foot is on the ground and disengages when the foot is in the air, to avoid interfering with toe clearance. This clutch takes over the effort of the calf, producing force without using consuming any energy and thereby reducing the overall metabolic rate.

In developing the device, the research team faced a challenge. When you place heavy objects on the legs, there’s an initial penalty that increases your energy costs. Previous efforts had not been able to overcome that initial penalty. For that reason, it was critical to the researchers to keep the device light.

Over several years and many iterative designs, the team developed a carbon-fiber design that is ultra-light, yet rugged and functional. The entire device weighs approximately one pound per leg, or less than a work boot.

According to experts, the device is a triumph of elegance, simplicity and bio-specific interventions over complex, over-engineered designs.

“This unexpected and unprecedented result, with the potential to improve such a familiar human activity as walking, was discovered during a fundamental scientific study of mechanically augmented ankle function,” said Jordan Berg, a program director at NSF. “It is a great example of how basic research can lead to new beneficial devices.”

One of the long-term goals of Collins and Sawicki’s project is to use lightweight, energy-efficient exoskeletons to assist individuals with mobility issues.

“You can imagine these lightweight efficient devices being worn on the affected limb to help people with the permanent aftereffects of stroke,” Collins said. “We’re hopeful that designs that use similar techniques can help people who have had a stroke walk more easily. We’re still a little ways away from doing that, but we certainly plan to try.”

In the future, the team intends to test the current device with individuals who have a variety of mobility issues to determine what designs might work best for different populations. They are also interested in developing exoskeleton components for the knee and the hip, where they believe they may be able to garner even larger benefits.

“As we understand human biomechanics better, we’ve begun to see wearable robotic devices that can restore or enhance human motor performance,” said Collins. “This bodes well for a future with devices that are lightweight, energy-efficient, and relatively inexpensive, yet enhance human mobility.”

Related Website:
Experimental Biomechatronics Lab:http://biomechatronics.cit.cmu.edu/

Walking assistive devices for the elderly

Jeremy Olivier — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 15:51:32 +0000

Working out the mechanics of walking is a major step towards creating assistive technologies.

When thinking about robots that can be used to care for the elderly, most people imagine humanoid robots that are meant to help with cooking, cleaning and socializing. But what if robots could be used to keep elderly people from needing help in the first place? Walking assistive devices could be just the tool.

A key element of life quality for the ageing population is preservation of mobility. Being able to walk unassisted is essential for independent living and a crucial driver in maintaining quality of life and self-autonomy. In elderly populations, a wide variety of medical issues lead to loss of mobility, from stroke (CVA) to poorly healed fractures and general loss of muscle mass. Loss of mobility is therefore a key driver in the commonly reported issue of loneliness in elderly people – it makes sense that if it is a struggle to leave your house, you will do so less.

The first requirement for free walking is sufficient muscle strength, not just for walking but also for the associated tasks of day to day life, such as sitting-to-standing motions (and visa-versa) and ascending and descending stairs. For various reasons, the elderly population is subject to weakening muscular power and this is a larger driver in the difficulties that this population begins to face with such tasks.

LSRO (EPFL) in association with NCCR Robotics, propose an assistive device targeted for exactly this situation. Based on an exoskeleton, it is being designed to be usable at home, without permanent human assistance. It should allow normal walking without any impediment. It should provide assistive muscular power only when needed and without any specific command action other than natural motion of the legs.

For a first prototype, the focus has been on the hip joint, a key joint for walking assistance, and an assumption has been made that ankles and knees can still perform their normal functions. “Partial devices” such as those proposed by the Swiss team may offer promising solutions to issues faced by the elderly, who may experience excessive weakness in one joint (here, the hips), by providing a lighter weight and less invasive solution to full exoskeletons. Translating these needs into engineering specifications leads to the following requirements: A single motorised degree of freedom (pivoting of the femur in the sagittal plane), preserving the full mobility of the remaining degrees-of-freedom, high power and low weight, “transparency” for normal walking, no specific control action (such as a “joystick” command) of any kind.

The exoskeleton is designed to be easy to wear, without impeding movement.

The kinematic design of our device is such that torque is intrinsically high around the horizontal position of the femur (typical for sitting-to-standing, stair climbing) and is backdrivable in standing or walking posture (high compliance, “transparence”), thus allowing effortless and swift walking motion. The transmission ratio between motor and end-effector is thus intrinsically, by design, continuously adapted at an optimal value.

Our new types of actuators have been developed so as to fit the requirements of common activities of daily life. For instance, a variable reduction using a ball-screw and bar mechanism to assist different activities such as standing up from a sitting position or standard walking has been evaluated. A high torque is required during the sit-to-stand transitions when the flexion angle of the hip is around 70° from vertical. During walking, less torque is required but higher dynamics is needed. A smaller reduction ratio is therefore better adapted when the flexion angle is less important (i.e. in the walking range of motion). In order to create this specific transmission a ball-screw with an excavator-like mechanism was implemented.

The influence on gait of this kind of robotic hip orthoses are now being assembled and tested in a collaboration between LSRO at EPFL, SMS Lab at ETH Zurich and several clinical centres of elderly care. As the users are able to move on their own, it is very important that the exoskeletons do not. Indeed the added limitations imposed by a sub-optimally designed device may overshadow the benefits that it is intended to provide. The influence of different design parameters such as kinematic configuration, overall mass or user interface are therefore evaluated in collaboration with the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab (SMS) at ETH Zurich.

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ep.161: Ekso Bionics, with Russ Angold

Audrow Nash — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 18:30:09 +0000

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks to Russ Angold, co-founder and CTO of Ekso Bionics, about the wearable bionic suit, Ekso. This suit enables individuals with any amount of lower extremity weakness to stand up and walk over ground with a natural, full weight bearing, reciprocal gait. Walking is achieved by the user’s weight shifts to activate sensors in the device which initiate steps. Battery-powered motors drive the legs, replacing deficient neuromuscular function.

Ekso provides functional based rehabilitation, over ground gait training, and upright, weight bearing exercises. It has been designed for the needs of busy therapists treating a wide range of patients in a single day. The suit is strapped over the users´ clothing with easy adjustments to transition between patients in as little as five minutes.

[youtube.com/watch?v=4czJUGoP9q8]

Russ Angold

Russ Angold is co-founder and CTO of Ekso Bionics. He works closely with the Lockheed Martin Corporation, licensing Ekso technology to further develop the HULC_TMexoskeleton for military use. Formerly Vice President of Engineering, Russ provided many of the concepts that shape today’s current designs as well as those of the ExoHiker_TM, ExoClimber_TM and HULC_TM.

Before Ekso Bionics, Russ held various engineering positions at Rain Bird Corporation, Berkeley Process Control and the Irrigation Training and Research Center in San Luis Obispo, California.

Russ has a bachelor’s degree in BioResource and Agricultural Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He is a California registered Professional Mechanical Engineer and has two granted patents and another seven pending.

Links:

3 exoskeleton companies go public

Frank Tobe — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 06:02:00 +0000

First came Ekso Bionics with an alternative public offering that netted $30.3 million; then Cyberdyne let its stock be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange; and last week the WSJ reported that ReWalk Robotics had filed an IPO and planned to raise $57.5 million.

A recent Wintergreen research report said that the rehabilitation robot market will grow from $43.3 million to $1.8 billion by 2020. The report covers products such as rehab/therapy robots, active prostheses, exoskeletons and wearable robotics. It also describes patient needs for all types of injuries, disabilities and therapies and recaps dozens of companies involved in the industry, particularly AlterG, InMotion, Ekso Bionics, Myomo, Cyberdyne, ReWalk Robotics and Hocoma. Now, three of those companies have gone public.

Rewalk Robotics (previously named Argo Medical Technologies), an Israeli start-up, received FDA approval in June for their exoskeleton to aid movement for people with lower body paralysis and last week the WSJ reported that the company plans to raise up to $57.5 million from an IPO. It has partnered with Yaskawa and others involved in the distribution of rehabilitation devices. The company is now headquartered in Marlborough, MA and the stock will appear on the NASDAQ Exchange.

Cyberdyne, a spin-off from the University of Tsukuba, has developed a complete line of exoskeleton products (HAL) for brain and mobility disabilities as well as non-medical purposes such as eldercare and worker assistance devices. On March 26, 2014, Cyberdyne let its stock be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange CEO Yoshiyuki Sankai will retain the majority voting rights “in order to prevent the company’s technology from ever being used for military purposes.” Cyberdyne is offering a lower-limb version of their HAL device in Europe after receiving CE Marking approval. FDA approval is pending. Cyberdyne also has a line of industrial grade autonomous floor cleaning robots.

Ekso Bionics Holdings did an alternative public offering in January, 2014 and changed its name once again – from Berkeley Bionics to Ekso Bionics to Ekso Bionics Holdings. The company has licensed a military version of its exoskeleton to Lockheed Martin and also has set up a division to further intellectual property through contracts and research grants. Their Ekso exoskeleton is available through collaborative rehab centers all over the world.

Noonee: The chairless Chair

NCCR Robotics — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:33:07 +0000

Noonee® is a new Start Up company coming out of research in robotics in Switzerland. Aimed at solving healthcare problems within the manufacturing industry, noonee adopts a Chairless Chair® approach.

Within the manufacturing industry, keeping employees healthy has been a major concern and challenge for many companies around the world for a long time. Jobs often involve spending long periods of time bending and crouching and as a result can leave staff with substantial back and knee problems. Of 215 million industry sector workers in the EU, a staggering 85 million are reported to suffer from muscle related disorders. Market solutions that are currently available may also pose problems as they limit short term tiredness by taking all the weight of the user, which can lead to muscle weakening. What is needed is a product that can support staff working on production lines while keeping them healthy.

Coming out of NCCR Robotics lab, the Bio-Inspired Robotics laboratory at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, noonee® is a revolutionary start-up business aiming to address this significant social issue that previous solutions have not dealt with successfully. The idea is to provide an exoskeleton that supports the weight of the user only when they feel tired , rather than continuously taking on this weight – meaning that the wearer is using their muscles and actively, rather than passively, sitting.

The “chair” is not a chair as we know it, but more of an exoskeleton for the legs with a belt to attach it to the hips and straps that wrap around the thighs. The slim structure has joints that allow the wearer to move freely, but when the wearer is in a position they wish to stay in for a long time (e.g. crouching under a car on a production line), this position can be fixed, meaning that the wearer does not need to use the same muscle groups for long periods of time to hold the position. The advantage of such a structure is that it can be worn anywhere and can also be used when standing and walking. This reduces the space required as compared to a traditional chair and reduces the hassle when compared to other solutions, such as chairs that are strapped to the user. The Chairless Chair® is currently still in prototype and the current version requires the user to fix a position by crouching down into the required position and pushing a button. It is hoped that future iterations of the Chairless Chair® will be actuated to allow the system to become intelligent and understand the intention of the user, allowing it to be fixed into position without any additional input from the wearer.

If you’re interested and want to be a part of prototype testing, check out their website and get in touch. Feel free to also ask questions in the comment section below.

Robohub is an online platform that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world. Learn more about us here. If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

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Exoskeleton with haptic sensors helps paralysed man to kick off World Cup

NCCR Robotics — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:47:19 +0000

VIDEO UPDATE 06/13 It’s June 2014 and all eyes are on Brazil. If you’re a football fan then June 12^th is the day you’ve been waiting for, but eagle-eyed technophiles are likely to have noticed one very exciting addition to the opening ceremony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZrvdODe1QI

Given that the World Cup is a celebration of all things football, it seems only right that this event should showcase some emerging technologies that could help a disabled patient to achieve a dream that so many have – taking the first kick at the World Cup.

Researchers work with volunteers to ensure that the exoskeleton is functional and comfortable. Source: Still from NBC Video

The Walk Again Project is a large collaborative project headed by Prof. Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University and featuring researchers in the USA, Brazil, Germany and Switzerland. It aims to give movement back to a paralysed person by means of an exoskeleton using a wide range of technologies.

An EEG cap transmits the intentions of the wearer to the exoskeletonSource: Still from NBC Video.

The exoskeleton is controlled through an EEG (Electroencephalography) cap placed over the head – the sensors on the cap read brain activity from the scalp. The cap then deciphers the intention of the user and transmits the instruction to the exoskeleton, which produces the gait movement using a set of hydraulic actuators. While EEG is less sensitive than implanting sensors on the brain, it has the advantage of being non-invasive, meaning that the teenager was not required to undergo surgery for this one-off event.

Despite being made from alloys and polymers to make it as light and flexible as possible, the exoskeleton weighs in at around 60kg.

For someone who is paraplegic, a major issue when using an exoskeleton is that the person is not able to feel their legs and therefore cannot know what position they are in. Think for a second how hard walking would be if you had absolutely no sensation in your legs – even if your muscles were able to do it, the physical stimuli that we all receive and process without active thought would not be there – so the mental struggle that you would feel – along with the lack of haptic feedback that able-bodied people take for granted – would probably stop you from being able to walk effectively.

Haptic feedback sleeves developed by doctoral students at LSRO, EPFL vibrate against the arm, giving the person wearing the exoskeleton vital information to help them know when their foot hits the ground.

This is where the haptic sleeve system comes in to play. The exoskeleton user wears sleeves created by a team lead by Prof. Hannes Bleuler at LSRO, EPFL and NCCR Robotics and stemming from the ongoing PhD work of Simon Gallo. The sleeves are embedded with vibrators that are spread over the forearm – these vibrators then give a haptic feedback to the wearer as they indicate not only if the foot is on the floor (from sensors on the foot), but which part of the foot is on the floor, giving a proprioceptive effect and allowing the user to walk upright. Thus the wearer can sense what feels like an artificial footprint on their arm as the sensors roll from heel to toe. It is for this part of the technology that the team have spent months training with volunteers, trying out different arrangements of actuators on the arms, trying epsilateral and contralateral arrangements and using virtual reality and an avatar to allow the user to see real time limb positioning.

The sleeves are soft and easy to wear; its sensors create vibrations that correspond to the section of the foot that is on the ground.

One of the major challenges of the project was the training process for the eight volunteers (males and females), to enable them to master control of an exoskeleton directly with their brain in a stressful environment like a stadium. The hopeful volunteers have trained in a realistic virtual environment mimicking the real stadium while receiving feedback from the tactile sleeves for the past 8 months with the final decision on who would take the kick made only last week.

The second worry for the project was that electromagnetic fields from cell phones carried by people in the stadium would block electronic signals in the exoskeleton – however testing in a comparable stadium showed that this would not be a problem.

The researchers hope that by using such a high profile event as the World Cup, the general public will gain a greater understanding and a greater tolerance of what wearable technologies can do, along with giving those with disabilities a hope for the future.

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Activelink Power Loader gives HAL some competition, but who’s going to Fukushima?

Reno Tibke — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:21:01 +0000

New Japanese exoskeleton pushing into HAL’s (potential) marketshare
We of the robot/technology nerd demo are well aware of the non-ironically, ironically named HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) exoskeletal suit developed by Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai’s also totally not meta-ironically named Cyberdyne, Inc. Since its 2004 founding in Tsukuba City, just north of the Tokyo metro area, Cyberdyne has developed and iteratively refined the force-amplifying exoskeletal suit, and through the HAL FIT venture, they’ve also created a legs-only force resistance rehabilitation & training platform.

Joining HAL and a few similar projects here in Japan (notably Toyota’s & Honda’s) is Kansai based & Panasonic-owned Activelink’s new Power Loader Light (PLL). Activelink has developed various human force amplification systems since 2003, and this latest version of the Loader looks a lot less like its big brother the walking forklift, and a lot more like the bottom half & power pack of a HAL suit. Activelink intends to connect an upper body unit, and if successful, will become HAL’s only real competition here in Japan.
And for what?

Well, along with general human force amplification and/or rehab, this:

福島第一原子力発電所事故 – Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster Site

Fukushima Cleanup & Recovery: Heavy with High-Rads
As with Cyberdyne’s latest radiation shielded self-cooling HAL suit (the metallic gray model), Activelink’s PLL was ramped up after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and resulting disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. Cleanup at the disaster area and responding to future incidents will of course require humans in heavy radiation suits with heavy tools possibly among heavy debris. While specific details on both exoskeletons’ recent upgrades and deployment timeline and/or capability are sparse, clearly the HAL suit and the PLL are conceptually ideal for the job. One assumes both will incorporate something like 20-30KG/45-65lbs. per limb of force amplification along with fully supporting the weight of the suit itself, and like HAL, PLL will have to work in a measure of radiological shielding and design consideration. So for now, HAL is clearly in the lead here.

Exoskeleton Competition Motivation Situation
Now, the HAL suit is widely known, widely deployed, and far and away the most successful of its kind ever made. No one else in Japan – in the world – is actually manufacturing and distributing powered exoskeletons at comparable scale. And that’s awesome and all due props to Professor Sankai and his team, but in taking stock of the HAL project’s 8 years of ongoing development, objectively one doesn’t see a whole lot of fundamental advancement. Sure, lifting capacity has increased incrementally and the size of the power source & overall bulk have decreased a bit. And yeah, no one else is doing what Cyberdyne’s doing, but that just might be the very reason why HAL seems to be treading water – and until recently, e.g., Activelink’s PLL, no one’s come along to offer up any kind of alternative.

Digressively Analogizing HAL with Japan & Vice-Versa Maybe
What follows is probably anecdotal, but probably right: See, Japanese economic and industrial institutions, while immensely powerful and historically cutting-edge, are also insular, proud – and weirdly – often glacially slow to innovate or embrace new technologies. With a lot of relatively happy workers doing excellent engineering with unmatched quality control and occasional leaps of innovation, Japan’s had a healthy electronics & general tech advantage for a good long time. Okay but now, thorough and integrated globalization has monkeywrenched the J-system, and while the Japanese might be just as good as ever, the world has caught up. For example, Korea’s big two – Samsung & LG – are now selling more TVs globally than all Japanese makers combined. Okay yeah, TVs ain’t robots, but across the board competition has arrived in a big way, and Japan’s tech & electronics industries are faltering and freaking out, and it’s illustrative of a wider socioeconomic issue. Cyberdyne, can you dig the parallel here?

Back to the Robot Stuff: Get on it, HAL/Japan – or Someone Else Will
A laundry list of robot/technology outlets, including Anthrobotic & IEEE, puzzled at how the first robots able to investigate at Fukushima were the American iRobot PackBots & Warriors. It really had to sting that in robot loving, automation saturated, theretofore 30% nuclear-powered Japan, there was no domestically produced device nimble enough and durable enough to investigate the facility without getting a radiation BBQ (the battle-tested PackBots & Warriors – no problem). So…ouch?

For now, HAL & Japan lead the exoskeletal pack, but with a quick look at Andra Keay’s survey piece here at Robohub it’s clear that HAL and the PLL are in a crowded and rapidly advancing field. So, if the U.S. or France or Germany or Korea or the Kiwis or whomever are first to produce a nimble, sufficiently powered, appropriately equipped, and ready-for-market & deployment human amplification platform, Japanese energy companies and government agencies and disaster response teams just might add those to cart instead. Without rapid and inspired development and improvement, HAL & Activelink, while perhaps remaining viable for Japan’s aging society industry, will be watching emergency response and cleanup teams at home with their handsome friend Asimo and his pet Aibo, wondering whatever happened to all the awesome, innovative, and world-leading Japanese robots.

It’ll all look so real on a 80-inch Samsung flat-panel HDTV.

Activelink Power Loader – Latest Model:

Cyberdyne, Inc. HAL Suit – Latest Model
http://youtu.be/xwzYjcNXlFE

SOURCES & INFO & STUFF
[HAL SUIT UPGRADE FOR FUKUSHIMA – MEDGADGET]
[HAL RADIATION CONTAMINATION SUIT DETAILS – GIZMAG]
[ACTIVELINK POWER LOADER UPDATE – DIGINFO.TV]

[TOYOTA PERSONAL MOBILITY PROJECTS & ROBOT STUFF]
[HONDA STRIDE MANAGEMENT & ASSISTIVE DEVICE]

[iROBOT SENDING iROBOTS TO FUKUSHIMA – IEEE]
[MITSUBISHI NUCLEAR INSPECTION BOT]

For fun:
[SKELETONICS – CRAZY HUMAN-POWERED PROJECT: JAPAN]
[KURATAS – EVEN CRAZIER PROJECT: JAPAN]

Note on the main image:
These images were scraped from the above Diginfo.tv & AFPBBNEWS YouTube videos, respectively. Because there just aren’t any decent stills out there – what else is a pseudo-journalist of questionable competency to do?

This piece originally appeared at Anthrobotic.com on January 17, 2013.

Power Loader power amplification exoskeleton robot

DigInfo TV — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 08:57:58 +0000

This power amplification robot, called Power Loader, is currently under development by Activelink, a Panasonic subsidiary venture.

The aim is to achieve a robot that can freely utilize power beyond human strength, in emergencies or on construction sites. Power Loader’s role is to link people with construction machinery.

“Power Loader receives the force input by a person through its force sensors, and amplifies it using motors. In this way, it assists the person, by producing a large force that the person can’t achieve alone. The concept we’ve used to develop Power Loader is, you get into it, rather than wearing it. Using this concept makes it safer to operate.”

When Power Loader was first developed, Activelink made a very large version. But following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, development has shifted to Power Loader Light, a more compact version.

“In each sole, there’s a six-axis force sensor. In line with the force vectors detected there, three axes for each leg are used to control motors in the ankle, knee, and hip, exerting a force in the direction of support.”

“We want to make Power Loader capable of carrying 50-60 kg while moving with agility. The legs could be used to support something very heavy, such as a radiation suit, and we think it could also carry 50-60 kg easily using the robot arms.”

This equipment serves as a platform for research on power loader control, which is being considered by Activelink and the Japan Atomic Power Company. It can be used to carry 30 kg with one arm, while exerting a minimum of effort.

“This is a trial harness, for use in designing a connection to the Power Loader Light legs. We’ve made it as compact as possible while producing this much power.”

“After that, we’re considering a very large version. The big Power Loader, which we were developing before, uses 22 motors. We’d like to achieve an exoskeleton with that kind of all-axis assist. When we do that, we think we’ll have a robot that can carry at least 100 kg easily.”

NASA X1 robotic exoskeleton

Wolfgang Heller — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:01:00 +0000

NASA’s X1 robotic exoskeleton is a mechanical suit designed to help astronauts exercise while in space, and here on Earth it can help paraplegics walk. In space, the joints would be configured to resist movement. Astronauts would have to exert force and work their muscles in order to move around, which would help them retain muscle mass during long stays in zero gravity. This configuration can be reversed, allowing the system to assist movement for people with limited mobility. The 57-pound suit was derived from the technology used for Robonaut 2 with the help of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and of Oceaneering Space Systems, the world’s largest Work Class ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) operator and the leading provider of ROVs to the oil and gas industry.

The X1 is still in development, and NASA hopes to make it more useful by adding more joints in the future.

Exoskeletons: New and old

Andra Keay — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:49:02 +0000

With NASA’s X1 Robotic Exoskeleton in the news today, it’s timely to look at the increasing range of exoskeletons in development or use today.

X1 (NASA, IHMC)

Built in conjunction with the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), the X1 Robotic Exoskeleton weighs 57-pounds and has ten joints, four of which are motorized. However, while the X1 can work to augment the wearer’s movements, it can also be set to work against them. While X1 is still in the research and development stage, it is more likely to join other exoskeletons in use on Earth, like those from Ekso, Rex, Raytheon, Cyberdyne, Honda, MIT, and DARPA projects, than it is to assist humans in space. [Release 12-239 NASA]

Ekso (Ekso Bionics)

The Ekso supports its own 20-kilogram weight via the skeletal legs and footrests and takes care of the calculations needed for each step. In a later model the walking sticks will have motion sensors that communicate with the legs, allowing the user to take complete control. Ekso Bionics initially developed systems for use by able bodied people, starting with the ExoHiker in 2005 and then the HULC, or Human Universal Load Carrier, which was licensed to Lockheed Martin for military development. For more, have a look at Automaton 2012.

HAL 5 (Cyberdyne)

Full hospital trials of the HAL 5 suit from Cyberdyne began this year and are expected to conclude by 2015, although you can currently rent one for approx $2000/month. The Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL 5) is capable of boosting the wearer’s strength 5 to 10 fold and more than 300 have been leased to a range of facilities in Japan. [The Australian]

Rex (Rex Bionics)

Rex Bionics founder, Richard Little was inspired to work on exoskeletons in 2003 when a friend was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The carbon fibre Rex costs about $150,000 NZ and weighs 38k but can give movement, including the ability to climb stairs, back to paraplegics like British TV presenter Sophie Morgan and BBC correspondant, Frank Gardner. [HeraldSun]

SARCOS (Raytheon)
Back in 2000 US Agency DARPA requested design proposals for “Powered Military Exoskeletons” and subsequently awarded Raytheon robotics branch SARCOS with the grant.

The result was the XOS Exoskeleton. It is powered by a single combustion engine which in turn powers the exoskeleton’s servo motors. At 68 kg (150 pounds) the bionic suit is very heavy – but reportedly allows its user to lift 90kg (about 200 pound) payloads “repeatedly with minimal strain”.

The project’s initial goal was an exoskeleton for logistics and supply tasks, but it’s easy to see various possible customizations for combat (e.g., transport and use of heavy weaponry) or battlefield operations (e.g., transport of wounded soldiers).

In 2010 SARCOS released an updated version – XOS 2. Dubbed the “Iron Man Suit” and named as one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2010 by TIME Magazine, it improves all aspects of the XOS 1 and, in particular, uses 50 percent less power and hence increasing fuel efficiency and autonomy. [Raytheon/PRNewsWire]

Others
There are a number of other exoskeletons, including perhaps this robotic wheelchair from Chiba Institute of Technology. Where is the dividing line between an exoskeleton and a vehicle?

Andra Keay from San Francisco and Markus Waibel from Zurich contributed to this post.

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Festo ExoHand at Hannover Messe

John Payne — Thu, 03 May 2012 06:17:29 +0000

Hannover Messe, the world’s biggest industrial fair, took place April 23rd through 27th. Among the many exhibits there were Festo’s ExoHand, which connects a glove, with an attached exoskeleton containing sensors, to a robotic hand with a very nearly duplicate exoskeleton, operated by pneumatic actuators. The robotic hand mimics the movements of the glove, but can do so with amplified force.