Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Exoskeletons for Nurses, Patients

Filed under: Rehab

Those boys at Engadget sure love their Japanese health care robots, publishing several great posts in the last few weeks. Now they're telling us that the HAL 5 exoskeleton will be going into mass production early Q1 2007. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that nurses with super-human strength will have a greatly simplified task of lifting and moving patients. I just don't want to be on the receiving end of an exoskeleton-assisted slap if I get a little short with the nurses.

HAL is originally developed to help elderly or disabled people walk around with their own legs and HAL-3 achieved the primary goal in 2000.

In 2005, the latest model HAL-5 was given upper body limbs as well as weight saving and more compact POWER units, longer life battery and much smaller control unit and spectacularly designed outer shells.

HAL is a robot suit which can expand and improve physical capabilities of human being. By wearing HAL-5 and you can hold up to 40 kg load by arms and can increase the maximum weight of leg press from 100 kg to 180 kg.

Note to Self: Always say please when writing orders if robotic nurses are present.

Read more at Engadget . . .

Check out HAL's homepage . . .

Flashback: HAL 3

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