The prospect of slipping into a robotic exoskeleton that could enhance strength, keep the body active while recovering from an injury or even serve as a prosthetic limb has great appeal. Unlike the svelt body armor donned by Iron Man, however, most exoskeletons to date have looked more like clunky spare parts cobbled together.
Japan's CYBERDYNE, Inc. is hoping to change that with a sleek, white exoskeleton now in the works that it says can augment the body's own strength or do the work of ailing (or missing) limbs. The company is confident enough in its new technology to have started construction on a new lab expected to mass-produce up to 500 robotic power suits (think Star Wars storm trooper without the helmet) annually, beginning in October, according to Japan's Kyodo News Web site.
CYBERDYNE was launched in June 2004 to commercialize the cybernetic work of a group of researchers headed by Yoshiyuki Sankai a professor of system and information engineering at Japan's University of Tsukuba. Its newest product: the Robot Suit Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) exoskeleton, which the company created to help train doctors and physical therapists, assist disabled people, allow laborers to carry heavier loads, and aid in emergency rescues. A prototype of the exoskeleton suit is designed for the small in stature, standing five feet, three inches (1.6 meters) tall. The suit weighs 50.7 pounds (23 kilograms) and is powered by a 100-volt AC battery (that lasts up to five hours, depending upon how much energy the suit exerts). By way of comparison, a lower-body exoskeleton developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group is powered by a 48-volt battery pack and weighs about 26 pounds (11.8 kilograms).
CYBERDYNE (which film buffs will recognize as the name of the company that built the ill-fated "Skynet" in the Terminator movies) designed the HAL exoskeleton primarily to enhance the wearer's existing physical capabilities 10-fold. The exoskeleton detects—via a sensor attached to the wearer's skin—brain signals sent to muscles to get them moving. The exoskeleton's computer analyzes these signals to determine how it must move (and with how much force) to assist the wearer. The company claims on its Web site that the device can also operate autonomously (based on data stored in its computer), which is key when used by people suffering spinal cord injuries or physical disabilities resulting from strokes or other disorders.
The HAL exoskeleton is currently only available in Japan, but the company says it has plans to eventually offer it in the European Union as well. The company will rent (no option to buy at this time) the suits for about $1,300 per month (including maintenance and upgrades), according to the company's site, which also says that rental fees will vary: Health care facilities and other businesses renting the suits will pay about three times as much as individuals. The site does not explain why, and the company could not be reached for comment.
CYBERDYNE is not the only company developing exoskeleton technology. The U.S. Army is in the very early stages of testing an aluminum exoskeleton created by Sarcos, a Salt Lake City robotics and medical device manufacturer (and a division of defense contractor Raytheon), to improve soldiers' strength and endurance. The exoskeleton is made of a combination of sensors, actuators and controllers, and can help the wearer lift 200 pounds several hundred times without tiring, the company said Wednesday in a press release. The company also claims the suit is agile enough to play soccer and climb stairs and ramps.
But there are still many kinks that must be worked out before HAL or any other exoskeleton become part of everyday life. Exoskeletons work in parallel with human muscles, serving as an artificial system that helps the body overcome inertia and gravity, says Hugh Herr, principal investigator for M.I.T.'s Biomechatronics Group, which is developing a light, low-power exoskeleton that straps to a person's waist, legs and feet. Wearers' feet go into boots attached to a series of metal tubes that run up a leg to a backpack. The device transfers the backpack's payload from the back of the wearer to the ground.
One of the difficulties in developing exoskeletons for health care is the diversity of medical needs they must meet. "One might have knee and ankle problems, others might have elbow problems," Herr says. "How in the world do you build a wearable robot that accommodates a lot of people?"
There are also concerns about the exoskeleton discouraging rehabilitation by doing all of the work of damaged limbs that might benefit from even limited use. "If the orthotic does everything," Herr says, "the muscle degrades, so you want the orthotic to do just the right amount of work."
Power efficiency could also become an issue, given that the HAL moves thanks to a number of electric motors placed throughout the exoskeleton. The problem with electrical power is that you have to recharge, says Ray Baughman, professor of chemistry and director of the University of Texas at Dallas's NanoTech Institute. Baughman and his colleagues have been developing substances that serve as artificial muscles (by converting chemical energy into electrical energy) that may someday be able to move prosthetic limbs and robot parts. Their goal is to avoid the downtime inherent in motor-powered prosthetics that must be recharged.
Makes you appreciate Iron Man's strength and agility all the more.
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18 Comments
Add CommentI wouldn't be surprised if they set up shot in Sunnyvale California.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"is powered by a 100-volt AC battery"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is that? Surely it's not Alternating Current for AC.
On looking at this guy, I had an amusing thought; how does he answer the "call of nature"? Several visions come to mind, but I'll keep them to myself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRobotics have been getting closer to mainstream since the Terminator movies in the mid 80's. I see this as a leap further down the rabbit hole. Excellent article, hopefully they can find a green way to recharge: nanobot solar paint, perhaps?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this> Robotics have been getting closer to mainstream since the Terminator movies in the mid 80's. I see this as a leap further down the rabbit hole. Excellent article, hopefully they can find a green way to recharge: nanobot solar paint, perhaps?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe limit on these kinds of machines has never been the suit or the ideas. It has always been on the power source. Given enough power, I can build you a device that could allow you to put your hand through stone walls. But you would have to replace or recharge that battery pretty fast. How fast?
Volts x Amps = Watts
1 horsepower = 746 watts. But a real horse can produce 12 horsepower for short periods, a top racehorse, more.
An olympic rower at sprint can put out about two horsepower for a minute or so. But most people are doing well to produce half that, and many get tired after walking at 100 watts output for a few hours.
That gives us the scale of what we are looking at.
The battery on this suit is supposed to be 100 volts. That's a special purpose battery, and to power this suit it's got to provide enough amps. They claim 5 hours life (depending on power output). Just guessing here, but based on power conversion and what they say about this suit and the bit I know about batteries, it's probably putting out 200 watts, so its a couple of amps. That's about what most people can muster on their own added on top of their own efforts, so they would feel much stronger, but in reality they wouldn't be as strong as a bodybuilder.
So lets say that battery has 300 watt hours capacity. That means that functionally, the suit is done in an hour of heavy work use. Either swap out the battery pack (like on a Makita drill) or take it off to recharge.
But let's look at what it would take to recharge it from a solar panel. Solar maximum is about 1 kilowatt per square meter. Figure 5% of that can be recovered if you are doing well. (There are more losses than just photovoltaic conversion losses.) So that's 50 watts per hour. So it would take 6 hours hooked up to a 1 square meter solar panel in good sun to "fill the tank" for another hour in the suit. That's a 9 square foot flat surface turned facing the sun.
But what would really be interesting would be a mobile suit that gave us strength on the order of 10,000 watts. That would start to get into the realm of doing superhero stunts. Problem is, that if you tied that system to this battery, the battery would have to put out 100 amps. That could happen, but a battery of decent size wouldn't last more than a few minutes at that level of power drain.
All of the above is why Heinlein's power suits in Starship Troopers were nuclear powered.
The Ironman movie got the energy right, even if it required a new energy source (that looked suspiciously like a stable tokamak) to do it.
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Edited by John_Toradze at 05/14/2008 2:41 PM
This is cool stuff but I am no rush for a 10,000 watt suit to be made since we are far away from proper control of such strength. Suit wearers would be accidently destroying alot stuff... or maybe accidentally neutering themselves as another poster mused about ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust think of how the firemen going up the stairs in the twin towers on 9/11 could have benifited from a suit like this wearing 80 pounds of gear !!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscyberdyne, HAL, and iron man?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisreally?
Ultracaps -- like EEStor's ghostly venture -- will answer the power problem eventually. Recharge time of basically zero, run time adequate, power demands as high as required.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe venture of build human interactions robot ,,just lights behind,,,but how to get the right method and properties to build...the concepts is simple..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisunderstand the auto energy rebuilding in the system and used 60% of the electrical pulse of the human system as main inner generated power fromt he centre of the Uranium coils and power conducter ..only 5% help to constructed the bio nono system...
cyber nano bots....how to design and simple system the used own body enegry comlieances......this is not about iron man ,,this is about build a comlete cycle human reformation human sheild..let share and get all the resource to make the best of the human sheild autobots...and human sheild robot..interlink system wiht machine and human brains...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am an amputee, belowe the left knee and I would like to volonteer for any testing or sugical inhancements in the robotic feid of science. I am already 25% titanium aloy, 35 years of age, don't smoke, and weigh 200 lbs. If you can't lead me where I need to go. Thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am an amputee, belowe the left knee and I would like to volonteer for any testing or sugical inhancements in the robotic feid of science. I am already 25% titanium aloy, 35 years of age, don't smoke, and weigh 200 lbs. If you can't lead me where I need to go. Thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am an amputee, belowe the left knee and I would like to volonteer for any testing or sugical inhancements in the robotic feid of science. I am already 25% titanium aloy, 35 years of age, don't smoke, and weigh 200 lbs. If you can't lead me where I need to go. Thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHurry up and perfect HAL. It looks great and I need a powered exoskeleton to help me Ski, Ice Skate, Dance and do deep knee bends. I'm getting older by the minute. Stop fooling around and get HAL on the market!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswow it's like halo's master cheif outfit!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou have got to think though the power output on these things and the juice required to run these things has got to e adjusted just right so the user can still lift a decent amount of weight and have a long use period. unlike some of these other (robotic suits) they have only succeeded in lifting an extra 40-50kg thats not much but with this one 200 pounds easy so im guessing you can lift a max about 300 so that works with about any job especialy construction so if they can find a power source to run these suits longer i think it will benefit the world even more, and like others say about using solar panels covering the suit, and nuclear, and battery i was thinking you can mix together the solar adn recharge battery ideas for longer battery life so it can charge some while in use or use a biodeisel moter with a main fuel supply backpack so the suit can carry the weight of the tank and you have a stronger force output by using a combustible fuel thats safe for the enviorment and puts out more force
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi, I am helen
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