| Jun 18, 2014 |
Japan robot firm showcases thought-controlled suits |
| (Nanowerk News) A Japanese robot-maker on Wednesday showed off suits that the wearer can control just by thinking, as it said it was linking up with an industrial city promoting innovation. |
| Cyberdyne founder Yoshiyuki Sankai said he was allying with Kawasaki, a city south of Tokyo, to explore ways to expand real-life applications for his robo-suits, which are often used for physical therapy. |
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| An official of Kawasaki City demonstrates a new powered exoskeleton to assist movement of an arm developed by Japan's robot suit venture Cyberdyne during a press conference in Kawasaki, suburb of Tokyo, on June 18, 2014. A Japanese robot-maker on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, showed off suits that the wearer can control just by thinking, as it said it was linking up with an industrial city promoting innovation. |
| "We want to make technology that actually helps people," Sankai, who is also a professor of engineering at the University of Tsukuba, northeast of Tokyo, said. |
| Cyberdyne, based in Tsukuba, makes power-assisted robotic suits, limbs and joints that can help the elderly and disabled to get around or can help industrial workers to lift heavy objects. |
| The machines detect weak electrical pulses that run through the skin when the wearer's brain sends the message to the limb to move. |
| The robot then moves exactly in concert with the natural limb, but provides much more power than it could exert on its own. |
| "We don't want people to see individuals wearing our products and think 'Gee, it must be so hard (to live with ailments)'," Sankai said. |
| "Rather, we want people to see the robot and say, 'Wow, that's fantastic'," he said. |
| Source: University of Lincoln |
