"Bionic Trousers"

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Cyborg heroes: By thought alone, people with disabilities can command `Bionic Trousers' to help them walk.
TSUKUBA, Ibaraki Prefecture--At first glance, Masahiro Shingu looks like the subject of an aborted experiment in a "Robocop" movie. Shiny metallic braces are strapped to his legs, while black, plastic hubs protrude from his hip and knee joints like horns. Wires run up and down his body linking the frame to a black plastic backpack and small waist bags on the side. Shingu, a 22-year-old senior at the University of Tsukuba, gives a timid smile as he strides in the awkward-looking mechanism. "It doesn't feel as unnatural as it looks," Shingu says...more...

[DJEB]

Something like this:
http://darkangelfan.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/screencaps/epeighteen/1180186.jpg

[Taro Toporific]

Disabled Japanese to scale Swiss mountain aided by 'robot suits'
April 3, 2006
TOKYO --Two disabled Japanese are planning to scale the 4,164-meter (13,661-foot) Breithorn peak in the Swiss Alps aided by mountaineers wearing futuristic robotic walking suits, project members said on Monday.
The August climb will be the first trial of technology developed by Japanese researchers who hope that it will benefit the physically disabled as well as Japan's burgeoning elderly population.
The battery-powered suit, code-named HAL, detects muscle movements through the natural electrical currents that pass over the surface of the skin and anticipates the next move. In this way, it aids movement and enhances the strength of the wearer.
Seiji Uchida, 43, who has been wheelchair-bound since a car accident in 1983, will be carried up Breithorn by his friend and physical therapist Takeshi Matsumoto, who will wear HAL.....more...

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Japanese quadriplegic to begin attempt robot-assisted ascent of Swiss mountain

ZERMATT, Switzerland -- A Japanese quadriplegic plans to try to ascend the peak of a Swiss mountain on Monday by riding piggyback on a mountaineer who will get some extra muscle from a robot suit. Seiji Uchida, 43, who was left paralyzed from the neck down after a traffic accident in 1983, will attempt the final ascent of the Breithorn mountain on the back of alpinist Ken Noguchi, who will wear a motorized exoskeleton known as HAL, or "Hybrid Assistive Limb." Noguchi is an experienced mountaineer who has climbed the highest peak on each of the seven continents. He and Uchida will be joined by a second HAL-suited climber carrying Kyoga Ide, a 16-year old high school student with muscular dystrophy, according to the expedition's Web site. Uchida has said his motivation for the climb was to "create new possibilities for the disabled as well as realize a dream."

Attempts to climb the mountain on Saturday and Sunday failed due to adverse weather conditions, and the team is hoping to strike out for the 4,164-meter peak on Monday. The expedition will take a cable car up the mountain and begin their 3-hour climb from about 280 meters below the summit. HAL is a kind of wearable robot developed by Tsukuba University engineering professor Yoshiyuki Sankai to help its operator perform tasks a normal human would not be strong enough for, according to the Web page of Sankai's venture company Cyberdyne. Using HAL, someone who could normally lift 100 kilograms at a leg press machine could lift 180 kilograms, according to Cyberdyne. The Breithorn is located close to the Italian border in the southern Swiss canton of Valais. The mountain is considered one of the easiest 4,000-meter Alpine peaks to climb.

[Mulboyne]

AFP via Yahoo: Japanese team fails to reach Alpine summit with help of robots

Two physically-handicapped Japanese men have failed in an attempt to reach the top of a 4,164 metre (13,660 feet) peak in the Swiss Alps aided by climbers and robot technology, tourism officials said...Flatau told the Swiss news agency ATS that the team had to turn back about half way through the ascent from the 3,883 metre-high Matterhorn glacier cable car station because the icy terrain became too steep. However, she said the handicapped duo felt they had fulfilled the dream of a lifetime just by making the attempt...more...

[kurohinge1]

[SIZE="4"]Japanese robot suit just about production ready[/SIZE]

The countdown to the day that you can buy your very own robot exoskeleton for whatever devious uses you can dream up is getting closer and closer. Tsukuba University engineering professor Yoshiyuki Sankai's HAL robot suit is apparently pretty close to production ready, with up to 20 of the bad boys to be produced by next year and 400-500 in 2008. The suits, designed to help in any number of situations where your puny human muscles are too pathetically weak to get the job done, will cost an estimated [USD]$42,000 to $59,000. If you just want to take it for a test spin, they'll be up for rent for about $592 a month. I personally can't wait until the price comes down low enough to get these things stocked at Wal-Mart and the inevitable exoskeleton ultimate fighting league is formed. [:D ]

[SIZE="4"]And just in time for these things too, 'cause our inner skeletons are not coping with "modern man" . . .[/SIZE]



]Move me robo-girl![/B]

[Marvin Feltcher]

Sorry!

[emperor]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/30/sarcos-to-produce-us-armys-exoskeltons-in-2008

[emperor]

snapped outside Harajuki-eki

[kurohinge1]

Almost there . . .

[SIZE="5"]Nursing-care, rehab robots gaining practical use[/SIZE]

. . . A man walks with the help of a robotic suit developed by professor Yoshiyuki Sankai of the University of Tsukuba. KYODO PHOTO

. . . Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at the graduate school of the University of Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture, has developed a cyborg-type robot suit.

If a wearer wants to move a limb, its motor, reading signals from the brain, will go into action, and the hands and legs will move together with the suit . . .

My tip is to make sure you turn it off before you nod off and start dreaming.

]. . . For an individual, the suit will be leased for 70,000 yen a month plus a maintenance fee.

According to an estimate by the Japan Robot Association, the scale of the domestic market for robots in the fields of medicine and welfare in 2025 will be 931 billion yen.

The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, an independent administration entity that is supporting robot development, said the target for the popularization of robots is 20 years from now, when the baby boom generation will enter their 80s.

"We want to make it available when the aging of society becomes serious," an official of the organization said.

Besides robots, machines for helping physically disabled people to use personal computers have been put into practical application. These people can write into computers as built-in cameras catch their eye movements to the keyboard.

Creact Co. of Tokyo, which is importing and selling such machines, said they are used not only for marketing research on what Internet screen users are seeking but also for the disabled and those who are not good at typing . . . more[/QUOTE]

Is 2-finger-typing considered "not good at typing"?

[Taro Toporific]

[Not Invented Here]

I hear next month they'll be coming out with an accessory that clips to the waist and allows for power-assisted precision bowing for those suffering from repetitive-movement injuries and overbearing middle management.

[Taro Toporific]

Put robo-Boogie In Your Butt.

[floatl][/floatl]
[INDENT]
Honda shows wearable device that helps you walk
The Associated Press
Friday, November 7, 2008; 2:32 AM
TOKYO --Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works.
The experimental device, unveiled Friday, is designed to support bodyweight, reduce stress on the knees and help people get up steps and stay in crouching positions.
Honda envisions the device being used by workers at auto or other factories. It showed a video of Honda employees wearing the device and bending to peer underneath vehicles on an assembly line.....
[/INDENT]