Am I the only one that’s a little confused about the purpose of this product? Sure it gets a lot of cool-points for being a robo suit that increases a person’s strength by 80% and yeah, I’m a big fan of piggy back rides but still. . . Are they suggesting that quadriplegics around the world will purchase the robotic suit AND hire someone to haul them around? Boy, and I thought Sherpas were expensive.
A Japanese quadriplegic on Monday partly realized his dream of ascending one of Switzerland’s highest mountains, thanks to a friend who carried him up with the help of a high-tech robot suit.
Seiji Uchida, who has been paralyzed from the neck down since a traffic accident more than two decades ago, failed to reach the summit of the 13,741-foot Breithorn mountain. Riding piggyback on a friend who was aided by a motorized exoskeleton, the 43-year-old said, however, that simply getting to within 500 yards of the mountaintop was a triumph.
Using HAL, someone who could normally lift 220 pounds at a leg-press machine could lift 396 pounds, according to Cyberdyne.
Sankai called the adventure a great result for the robot, which took 14 years to develop.
“We have shown that such a robot can be used in the snow,” he said. “The most important thing is that we try to support handicapped persons’ dreams. We got some great data, and now we’re going to build a better version.”
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