Become a Cyborg–Iron Man Suit Soon Available
It sounds like a badly written Sci-Fi script but a company called Cyberdyne (Japan’s CYBERDYNE, Inc.) is developing a suit that will augment human strength and give you the ability to do things that would not ordinarily be possible for you. The mechanical suit will also hold the possibility of making handicapped people move around easily and resume activities that are currently impossible for them to do. The Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) exoskeleton is only available in Japan, but the Cyberdyne company plans to offer it in Europe as well. The company rents (they do not sell them) the suits for about $1,300 per month.
Wearing a robotic exoskeleton could enhance strength, keep the body active while recovering from an injury or even serve as a prosthetic limb. It will be the ultimate in handicapped equipment. When a person tries to move, nerve impulses go from the brain to the muscles via motor nerves which move the muscles. The suit detects the weak electrical signals from the nerves on the surface of the skin. HAL receive the nerve signals through a sensor located on the skin of the suit wearer. The weak nerve impulses are turned into powerful movements. Most exoskeletons up until now look like an assortment of spare parts stuck together–that’s all about to change. Japan’s CYBERDYNE, Inc. is designing a futuristic, white exoskeleton that looks like it came from the future. CYBERDYNE says the HAL exoskeleton can enhance your own strength or do the work of ailing (or missing) limbs. The CYBERDYNE company has begun construction on a new lab that will manufacture up to 500 exoskeleton power suits annually.
CYBERDYNE, Inc. was started in 2004 to develop the work of a group of researchers headed by Yoshiyuki Sankai a professor of system and information engineering at Japan’s University of Tsukuba. The Robot Suit Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) exoskeleton was created to train doctors and physical therapists, assist disabled people, allow laborers to carry heavier loads, and aid in emergency rescues. The Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) prototype suit is designed for small stature people (five feet, three inches or 1.6 meters tall). The suit weighs 50 pounds (23 kilograms). It is powered by a 100-volt AC battery that lasts about 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).
ref: http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/index.html
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