Slashdot Mirror
Powered Exoskeleton Legs
dyoo78 writes "Berkeley Engineers have come up with an ingenious mechanism that almost mimics, well, Borg technology. Developed by UC Berkeley's Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory, the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX) consists of mechanical metal leg braces that are connected rigidly to the user at the feet, and, in order to prevent abrasion, more compliantly elsewhere. The device includes a power unit and a backpack-like frame used to carry a large load. This development bring to the forefront the ability to not only carry large loads in wartime efforts, but may possibly help people with limited muscle ability to walk optimally."
Steven Hawking has been using this technology for years!
According to this story, Stephen Hawking already designed and built something better. "I am faster, stronger... better than before," Hawking told reporters via his suit's built-in voice synthesizer.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Doing the splits is hard enough, but doing them sideways, in the middle of a somersault would be worse...
or:
The infantry advances with incredible speed towards the enemy, the men running across the battlefield at 50 miles/hour, then suddenly start to hop in circles as a small but significant grin occupies the face of the enemy commander...
[yeah, I know they're not netowrked, yet...]
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Alright, cool... But can it play Max 300 on hard in DDR? Yeah, I thought not.
"with braces on his legs before?"
Of course, there's nothing like curing muscle defficiency like getting chased by goons on bikes.
i, for one, welcome our robotically enabled masters!
I wasn't sure story to read first, the borg technology or MS assimilating (giving money to) SCO. But they sounded similar, so I went ahead with latter one. :)
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Carrying heavy loads in wartime? You mean, like, say, that backpack full of batteries and equipment to power your cyberlegs?
Oh no... not super grannies! Kids giving their grandparents jars to open... I know where this is going!
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Yes, Berkeley-ites! With our patented "Hippie Assist" functionality, you can flee the tyranny of pepper-spray-wielding police at up to three times the speed! And the titanium-alloy supports allow you to carry up to SIX times as many picket sign bearing snappy slogans!
Worry no more as you march around protesting the cause of the day, as you can taunt the pigs with impunity!
(Hemp-shoe compatibility guaranteed!)
Was more of a standup version of the technology used on captain Christopher Pike's beeping chair.
Lockers? I don't need no steeking lockers!
Add on robotic arms, and we'll be ready to fight off alien queens and throw them out airlocks.
/sig
All your muscles are belong to us!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Item I mean - not story.
Didn't a Russian scientist come up with something similar several years ago?
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Yeah, I also saw these in such credible movies as Alien and The Matrix.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Does it run Linux? If so, I'm afraid of it. I wouldn't want a malicious penguin taking over control.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Woooowwwwwzzeerrrrrrsssssss!!!!!!
They're robo-trousers, ex-NASA!
Until a powered exoskeleton looks like the loader Ripley used in Aliens, I'm not interested.
I love the photo of the guy wearing it. Let's put Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis in that get-up and see if it looks familiar. Who you gonna call?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I only have one lower extremity that isn't plural. And no, it doesn't require an exoskeleton to maintain it's rigidity.
Overused Borg references are to be replaced by overused Matrix references (or Michael Crichton novels)
It's the wrong trousers!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
" This development bring to the
forefront the ability to not only carry large loads in wartime efforts, but may possibly help people with limited
muscle ability to walk optimally."
Yes! it's great for building the super soldier to help police the world from evildoers!!!
p.s. um, it can improve disabled people's quality of life too. Always glad to see the war machine doing it's good for humanity no?
At long last, no more engaging in that irritating self propulsion. This will be the ultimate means of locomotion when other means are unavailable (trains and automobiles and such).
Segway, eat your heart out.
If you could beef them up with up with better hydrolics - jumping over buildings and matrix type stuff? You got lett it all go Neo, fear, doubt, disbelief, and a sizeable chunk of you savings.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
This is great -- it senses your motions and accomodates you, helping you along:
/. article a few months ago about a Japanese team of researchers who were working on the same sort of device (I don't recall the name, but I'm sure the dupe-hounds will point it out). But if I recall correctly, that system required control imput, such as from a joystick-like device. That limits the robusteness and usability pretty severely, IMHO.
The researchers point out that the human pilot does not need a joystick, button or special keyboard to "drive" the device. Rather, the machine is designed so that the pilot becomes an integral part of the exoskeleton, thus requiring no special training to use it. In the UC Berkeley experiments, the human pilot moved about a room wearing the 100-pound exoskeleton and a 70-pound backpack while feeling as if he were lugging a mere 5 pounds.
There was a
Interestingly, this thing runs on a gas engine (which powers hydraulics for the powered joints and provides electricity for the computer controls), and:
The current prototype allows a person to travel over flat terrain and slopes, but work on the exoskeleton is ongoing, with the focus turning to miniaturization of its components. The UC Berkeley engineers are also developing a quieter, more powerful engine, and a faster, more intelligent controller, that will enable the exoskeleton to carry loads up to 120 pounds within the next six months. In addition, the researchers are studying what it takes to enable pilots to run and jump with the exoskeleton legs.
I want my robot body now please. Price?
everything in moderation
Took nearly 2 minutes to download, but watching those short steps around... then finding out that the backpack was loaded with 100lbs.... wow.
Obviously the future of movement and an important first step, no pun intended.
So we've got a unit that can carry up to 120lbs of weight. Figure a few more lbs and it may now be able to 'support' a man whos legs no longer work properly. Although this design is based upon feedback from a proper leg to calculate where it is supposed to move/balance.
The old quote about the yellow pages- let your fingers do the walking- may soon become far more true than you've realized... especially for those born or brought to wheelchair bound.
So... I can use this to pick up aliens and throw them out airlocks right? Right? No?!
I'm sure it wouldn't be too tricky to put physical or electrical limits on the exoskeleton to prevent it from moving into a position that the human body can't. I seriously doubt it'd be a big problem.
I'd be worried about the centre of gravity on this thing. From the picture, things don't look too good. Sure, the person can carry a huge load. But that load is all on his back, with some of it a foot or more away from his body. If he tips over will the legs be any help getting him upright?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Martin Caiden ("Cyborg"->"The Six Million Dollar Man" ) and every book was labelled "Soon to be a Major Motion Movie" had a book titled "ManFac" (0671654098) which was a complete body exoskeleton.
...to having technology seen only in science fiction stories happen right in front of our eyes.
This technology could easily make it possible for soldiers to carry very heavy armor that could possibly protect them from most all small arms fire and possibly even some heavy fire. All the while carrying heavy machine guns and small autoloading cannons that these days require crews to move and operate.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
"the wearer can walk, squat, bend and swing from side to side without noticeable reductions in agility."
But can he LIMBO!
The onion is rarely this prescient: http://www.theonion.com/onion3123/hawkingexo.html
on how long it will be before this kind of equipment becomes standard fare in moutain climbing? Everest may not be so hard anymore, with a mechanical exoskeleton and oxygen tanks, and the kind of people who climb everest (which generally costs over $100,000) have the kind of money to blow on this kind of technology when it becomes available.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
Cool. Soon you can be your own Master Blaster.
What about Ernie Hudson, yo? You just pissed a brutha off!
to this technology for nurses. I think the military has similar things in R&D.
9 91072
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99
in a single bound, faster than a speeding train...
All we need now is "more powerful than a bullet" and we'll all be superman (or supergirl...)The cesspool just got a check and balance.
But you'll be able to cave in the skull of anyone who makes fun of you.
We know we've really reached the future when we can build a tank with a hot chick inside.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
The more and more I read about this, I'm quite impressed, but doesn't it seem really easy to throw the damn 70 pound backpack in my car trunk and drive 15 times faster? :)
Also, if that thing runs out of fuel, not only are you carrying 70 pounds, but you're also carrying 100 pounds of exoskeleton. If it merely malfunctions, you have to carry the fuel too! ...Unless you want to explain to your commander why the Army should buy you a new one. Maybe they should add a good set of retractable wheels, so you can carry it around like luggage in an airport.
WWF raw next weeks is gonna *rule*.
-ninjaneer
Could they be used for super kickboxing? Or live action platform gaming? (Jumping like Mario or running like Sonic) These pair of legs just might make reality less boring:)
the first steps in producing the powered armor of RAH's "Starship Troopers".
I found it interesting to use the term "Pilot" for the user/wearer - especially in light that the exoskeleton is designed to be used with apparently little training.
It's nice to see that we are taking the first steps (excuse the pun) to fight back after space insects destroy Buenos Aires.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I can see it now. A poor cripple in school has this exoskeleton. Then the school bully hacks it to beat up the kid wearing it. Then the bully can be lazy, have virtually no evidence he did the beating and stillbe the bully.
Evolution or ID?
How is this better than a cart with wheels?
It looks cool, but it could probably break easilly and the battery life is probably worse than my laptop!
Feathers McGraw read Gromit's copy of "Electronics for Dogs", and then modified the (ex-NASA) trousers, so they were remote controlled, and removed the local control panel.
So it was a hardware hack, not a software hack. [But it's the hardware equiv of Back Orifice]
Any time to let someone get physical access, especially if it's unsupervised, especially a jewel thief penguin, you're screwed.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
GO GO GADGET LEGS !!!!!!!!!!
Judgement Day ensues
Hey Darl, that innocent 'kick me' sign is going to take on a whole new meaning. Say hi to the martian rover.
Okay, so now they have half of the Aliens Cargo mover exo-skeleton.
;)
Which by the way seems much more efficient than a forklift.
So now they can do a bulky exo-skeleton, but can they slim it down and make it an exo-suit?
Got to love the advances of technology.
Who says sci-fi doesn't get it right.
is to get this developed to the point where it could replace a wheelchair. The psychological advantage to a person who'd lost the use of his legs to actually stand up and interact with the world "eye to eye" would have to be powerful. It probably also doesn't hurt to keep the muscles moving and the appropriate neural pathways firing.
Yea, I know, long way to get there from here, but it's a promising first step. Certainly worth some research dollars in my opinion.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
why girls aren't interested. Common now get serious
Waiting for the next war with popcorn on a la-z-boy.
I bet these things look like they are out of starwars.
They vids aren't that exciting. If you are looking for pr0^h^h^h Cool manga type mechs, but if you are interested in human-robitc compatability, this is nice.
:-) But as the downloads at berkley were getting slower and slower, I offer a mirror of the three vid clips:
Each video is basically a guy walking around in circles for a minute or so. So if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.
Bleex-part1.mpeg(18)
Bleex-part2.mpeg(21 meg)
Bleex-part3.mpeg(23 meg)
[/karmawhoring]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
Kicking ass and chewing Bubble gum. I think we know what they just ran out of.
The article neglected the real reason for designing it. The guy shown in the picture is an engineering student, and the backpack is full of electrical engineering textbooks. He's trying to make his life easier.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
http://www.technohol.com/new-u/spitfire/index.asp
The video clearly showed that the power pack this device currently
needs is so heavy that a guy wearing the skeleton+power pack looks
the way I do when I carry 30+ kilos and no exoskeleton! In other words,
he would be much better off if he left the exoskeleton+power back
behind, and carried on using natural power only.
As with a lot of other cool devices, the really big problem is the need
for compact, efficient, lightweight power sources.
They currently don't exist.
This one has arms.
...and it's smaller to boot:
Hybrid Assistive Leg
It figures that a university would come up with a way to carry more textbooks! .. now if they could only make the seats in lecture theatres more comfortable.
Forget helping those with damaged spinal cords. What he have here is a way for those extremely obese individuals to finally get up out of bed and into the world. No longer will they be required to lay there helplessly and wash themeselves with a rag on a stick. Now they can use the local self serve car wash like all self respecting people do.
The comment has already been made. Let's move it along people. Nothing to see here.
I wonder if NASA will get ahold of this to help those astronauts who have been in space too long and need some help walking when they first get back to earth? It might even be a good form of therapy for those who have temporarily lost the ability to move their legs.
I've been thinking about something like this for a while now. (Too bad, I'm just a DBA and not into robotics.)
How soon before we can jump from large heights? Say jumping from a 2 story building. Where the legs act as a shock absorber. Or what about jumping over large distances? Something similar to the Hulk.
"The fundamental technology developed here can also be developed to help people with limited muscle ability to walk optimally"
Having just broken my ankle recently, I could see how - if priced right - this technology would be great for patients recovering from leg injuries.
I'm wondering how well it actually supports the legs. Assumedly, one could splint or cast the broken part of the leg/ankle/etc, and allow the mechanics to take weight off the broken areas.
Even if it weren't useful for an actual break, it would definately be great for the recovery process. I'm getting my cast off tomorrow, but I can see that my muscle atrophied rather quickly. 5 weeks, and my once well-formed muscles are now rather thin (the other leg got a lot stronger though).
An exoskeleton would assist the weak muscles, while the movement should force movement which would strengthen them over time. I'd go for one if I could get it!
Great somebody invented an invading force that can be defeated by a staircase. Daleks, anyone?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
This was invented by Robert A. Heinlein in the book Starship Troopers!
Looks like Mr. Heinlein has done it again. He predicted more then a half century ago that the interface for a an exoskelton (which is what the powered armour in ST is) would be through a force feedback system, shere the suit reads human movement and then reacts to it. Thus very little special training is required to use the powered suit, or exoskelton.
Robert A. Heinlein was also the guy that invented the water bed.
So, the engineers finally played this game and decided that it can't be that hard to actually build a machine like that.
:)
On a serious note, that's what this is on the way too. Someone above mentioned that this will enable soldiers to carry very heavy armour that can protect them from most small firearms. Soon, there will be arm exoskeletons and then after that we'll have complete exoskeletons, and at some point, the machines will end up looking like the Mechwarrior machines with missiles and automatic machine guns.
Though it would be nice to think of the possibilities on a humane side. Helping people who've lost the ability to walk, to walk again. But that not what provides the money (the large amounts needed to really propell this). This should make basketball actually watchable again
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
The noise it makes now makes it quite useless to sneak around. What is the part that makes the noise?
Net sa best, mar it koe minder
The article starts out with a statement of how terrible it would be to haul around a 70 lb pack. That was considered a light load when I was in the Special Forces. Double that capacity and you'll have something the Army might be really interested in.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Now I'm all for helping people with disabilities and all but if they build this with the military in mind they'll most likely not have an invention which is affordable to someone on disability.
Share the weight out, then have a chain of 99 robots following your footsteps.
This will definitely cause some problems at airport security checks:
Please remove your keys, your wallet, and your exoskeleton and step over to the man with the wand...
I wonder if this is part of the same government funded super-soldier project? http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0%2C1284%2C41216 %2C00.html
The Borg had real human legs
One kick ass grunt. While looking at the article it occured to me that the power unit in the infantry laser rifle that is under developement may be the power source they are looking for. Combine those two systems with a suit of armor capable of taking 7.62 rounds and with a sealed environment and you have a very robust grunt able to operate in many environments and with high survivability. With the exoskeletons load capability solving the weight problem this would seem feasable in the near future. The laser rifle is due around 2015 if I am remembering correctly. Starship Troopers indeed.
It has been said you are only as old as you act... I am 9. "Hey thats my toy give it back!"
Would this be something good to build into space suits for exploring places like MARS or the Moon?
Imagine - a single astronaut being able to carry hundreds of pounds of equipment without even noticing it! Want to move the lander? Have three astronauts pick it up and move it.
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
Thats less trips to the car and now I can use my 21" monitor!
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Here we have the strongest military in human history, with some of the most advanced gadgetry ever devised. So why the hell are people still "hauling a 70-pound pack across miles of rugged terrain" ?
This justification does not pass the giggle test.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
The side with that technology, thus cutting down considerably on the losses of your armed forces or the side that this technology would be used to defend against?
Personally, one would imagine that faced with the possibility of fighting such a foe that most governments would most likely reconsider any potentially hostile activity towards such an equipped government.
Of course, such is the march of human progress. One could argue forever that military forces and armed conflict do nothing but ill for all of humanity, yet at the same time someone else can point out the near endless series of side benefits that have been brought to humanity because of humanity's propensity towards killing eachother.
For instance, the computers that you and I are both sitting in front are the progeny of now 'ancient' military computer systems built during WWII. We may never have had RADAR systems developed if not for war. Same goes with rocket and jet engine technology...
Sure, war sucks. Sure, people die from armed conflict. However, without war, we would most assuredly not have the technology that we have today as artists, philosophers and pacifists aren't as prone to push forward the march of technology as much as those that have been put into desperate situations that need a radical new way of thinking to achieve a goal do.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Here's the slashdot story, also.
Watch the video, and note the intense concentration on that guy's face! Walking around in those legs is obviously not easy. At some points it looks like he is losing his balance, or at least he feels like he's losing his balance, because he puts his arms out.
They obviously still have a lot of work to do...
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
a guy wearing the skeleton+power pack looks the way I do when I carry 30+ kilos and no exoskeleton! In other words, he would be much better off if he left the exoskeleton+power back behind, and carried on using natural power only.
No, in other words you would be better off like that. Not everyone has the same physique as you do, and just because you personally wouldn't find it useful doesn't mean nobody else will.
As with a lot of other cool devices, the really big problem is the need for compact, efficient, lightweight power sources. They currently don't exist.
geez, since when did Obvious comments start getting modded as Insightful? And besides, if you RTFA you would see the following:
The UC Berkeley engineers are also developing a quieter, more powerful engine, and a faster, more intelligent controller, that will enable the exoskeleton to carry loads up to 120 pounds within the next six months. In addition, the researchers are studying what it takes to enable pilots to run and jump with the exoskeleton legs.
the coolest club on
I've been asking this question to everyone I can find: does anyone remember a TV show from either the early 80's or late 70's that had a handicapped person who developed (or had developed for him) a powered exoskeleton that enabled him to walk and fight crime?
:)
Sort of like M.A.N.T.I.S. from the 90's, but not it. I seem to remember the guy getting into his suit by laying down in an industrial sized chromed press. I also seem to remember him operating the suit from buttons on his wrist. Oh, and the suit looked vaguely like Iron Man's suit.
Any idea folks?
So, how far could you kick a football with this rig?
To put a witty saying into 120 characters, jst rmv ll th vwls.
Take those 50kg, and split them between an heavy armor, a big mean gun, and other enhancements like a weapon-stabilizer. This is the real deal the DARPA is interested into. Nothing has really changed much when it comes down to simple soldiers battle, until this. Who need tanks, jeeps and the like, when every man packs as much firepower and more mobility?
The majority of the funds invested go for technologies useful for civilians and day-to-day life, though. Better energy sources, a lot of medical applications, etc. This is really something they could invest in a lot more, and even if it's for military purposes first, people would not complain.
Had an extensive article on full body exoskeletons VERY remeniscent of the kit ripley wore in aliens...
/. over 30 who hasn't suffered from terminal alzheimers....
The article included actual photographs of actual working (though tethered by hoses to a static power pack) units that were being developed by/for the US Army.
I cannot remember the axact issue or year because I was a mere sprog and my dad used to buy the occassional pop mechanics, but it was early sixties.
This was 45 years ago people....
Please don't tell me I'm the only fart on
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
"could"?
;P
This development bring to the forefront the ability to not only carry large loads in wartime efforts ...
... that's where the cost-benefit analysis gets tricky, in an age of over-the-counter anthrax and pocket nukes.
That's all good and fine, there's always plenty of budget for problems of large loads in wartime.
But what about the other demands of wartime -- such as carrying small loads with extreme caution?
Deciding between carrying more dangerous weapons, or carrying fewer but more safely
I think this exoskeleton thing should be adapted for civilian uses -- such as egg-races, where the cyborgs have to race across broken terrain, carrying an egg balanced on a spoon.
-kgj
-kgj
what they fail to tell you is that the backpack in the photo is actually the battery powering those robotic legs!
i am talking out of my ass, but it wouldn't suprise me with all of our power issues these days...
R.I.P.
Also you will fall on your ass when the battery runs out.
Forget this inner sphere stuff. Wait for the Clan version -- it will weigh less and hold more.
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
I liked how the saftey cable was discreetly dangling down behind the demonstrator's head and connected to the backpack. Good insurance against demo gremlins that would cause the system to seize and make the guy flop forward with 200lbs of stuff landing on his back.
Not A Sig
http://www.servomagazine.com/tetsujin2004/
just use nuclear power cells? Wouldn't they be more light weight?
Wishing I was a millionaire since 1969.
Yes! You too will be able to run across America several times. You will recall that when our hero Forest Gump was a tiny lad, he had these very same braces. With the help of a training team he quickly learned to run very fast and long.
It's a shame that these things will probably be locked up and secured for "military use only" by the government. After all, we wouldn't want terrorists to get them (sarcasm).
[I for one, welcome our new mechanically legged overlords]
In addition to the uses already mentioned, it would be a boon to therapy. For instance for someone who has to rebuild muscles and such the system could start off supporting most of the users weight and be set to gradually over a period of time/activity to increase the amount of work the user's own muscles would have to perform.
Might make for an interesting way to acclimatize oneself to different environments as well.
For instance (a few years in the future...) if you're expecting to be on the moon but don't have the luxury of acclimatizing once your there you could set up something like this to gradually produce nearly equivalent muscle memories needed for that environment.
*chuckle* Ok, I'll stop now. Back to my Thorazine....mmmmm Thoraziinnnnneeeeee....
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
...I would rather wait it out not have a war myself. Unfortunately, I am not GOD in heaven. So, that is something that I don't have the opportunity to control, affect or slightly alter.
When did flowers and nice sentiments stop someone from being attacked as well?
If the US wasn't the most powerful nation in the world at the time of the WTC Sept. 11th attacks, then those attacks would have happened against another nation with a similar societal view...
Hmmm.. Let me think for a second... Ahhhh... yes, it would be Canada that would have been attacked.
See, this 'War on Terror' is a war against Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists. The closest correllation to that group in Christianity, as an example, is the KKK. Any government providing true freedom to its people are the sworn enemies of groups like Al-Qaeda.
From what I understand, Canada allows women to dress as they wish, talk back to their men and even run for public office! That is the antithesis of Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists. That is what makes the United States and any other nation with a similar political/social ground the 'Great Satan' to those people.
If it wasn't the WTC Sep. 11th Attack, it could very well have been the Sep. 11th Big Ben Attack, or the Sep. 11th CN Tower Toronto Attack.
Those kind of attacks will likely be impossible to forever eradicate from humanity. However, with aggressive military research and development ending up with the creation of powered armor suits and weapon systems, the chances of a full-scale world war are greatly decreased.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I am glad that research has finally gotten around to exoskeleton engineering. I have a freind who has been a quadrapalegic for more than a decade. (Auto accident) It would be phenominal to see her walk again. Though the rig looks unwieldy and ghastly at best, I'm sure whomever uses this would rather walk again than be concerned with the look. I know I sure would.
Way to go guys. Thank you, for the hope that disabled people may walk again.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Wonderful! First we'll see this in Elementals, and then eventually this technology will be scaled up so that our soldiers can be full-blown battlemech warriors, as such a setup better suits itself to scaring the shit out of people.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
In order to lift large loads, won't the feet need to be coupled to the carried load by something stronger than the wearer's spine, shoulders and arms? Otherwise, wearers will be exoparaplegic.
--
make install -not war
The operator who employs this device wil actually NEED it, as the normal strength of a human is insufficient re.: independently carrying that huge backpack that seems to power the damnable thing.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
And I, for one, welcome our new hydraulic exoskeloton overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted reader of Slashdot, I can be helpful in using the DMCA to round-up others to toil in their UC Berkeley classrooms.
I've only managed to download the first two videos so maybe it shows in the third, but I wonder if this thing can let the "pilot" stand still with the 100lb bag on his back. You can see the kid kinda throwing his hands out for balance once in a while. For some reason I imagine standing still and balancing the weight would be a lot harder for the machine to interpret and more difficult for the kid to balance than the walking.
Moderation: +1 pwnage
If I get one of those things, I can honestly say to someone:
"Bite my shiny metal ass!"
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This would be great for people with muscular dystrophy, like my daughter. Being able to stand up and walk could reduced the need for these kids to have tens of surgeries on their spines and feet over the course of their very short lives. Forget the army, get this thing to the Muscular Dystrophy Association!
In fact, there is a much better book (well...maybe not MUCH better, I loved Starship Troopers) by John Steakley (might be Robert...can't remember) called 'Armor'. The exoskeleton is the centerpiece of one of the best sci-fi books of all time. The story itself is centered around much of the moral and ethical implications of such technology used for militaristic purposes, but it is very well written and completely engaging.
....and it is John Steakley...not Robert)
Just thought I would throw that in for folks who mentioned Heinlein but may not have read Steakley's 'Armor'. (It's available on Amazon for about $8....ISBN 0886773687
I'd still be impressed to see a walking lifter like they had in the first alien movie
insightful
I think Heinlein SHOULD get the credit, or who ever thought up the idea in the first place.
IMHO thinking up the ideas in the first place is the real breakthrough, or at the very least EQUAL to implimenting the idea. I think PHDs already get a lot of credit for things that other people invented, or thought up, but had neither the time, nor the funding to develope.
Not that have anything against PHDs, but I think the real brains is in the creative process.
Of course people that are both (i.e. Nicola Teasla), well, I'm just in awe of.
I, for one, welcome our new Teasla overlords.
The user of this system still has to use his leg muscles to walk. So yes there is no back pressure/weight, but the leg muscles have to compensate for the entire payload whenever your walking or trying to jumpover/walk over an obstacle.
Unless there is a hover mode ability by the exoskeleton? Why dont we just invent more money into anti-gravity suites/engines, so that there is no need to have any pressure/weight on our body?
something like this was on the show, Dark Angel.
cool to see it become reality.
though they didnt need a 75 lb backpack.
This could be the next step in wearable computing, if you think about it. While it would be hard to sit down with a bunch of hardware on your back, you could walk around with your computer with you, interacting with it through Eyetap and voice commands, or something... Although it might not be necessary, as computers are getting so damn small...
It sort of reminds me of the cyber junkie from S.E. Lain.
So how long before Ripley can slap an Alien Queen like a bitch?!!!
Genda
"I don't think powered exo-suits are really a solution to helping handicapped. There has to be a better way than placing them in huge, isolating automats."
How many times have you inadvertanly stared at someone with an artifical or leg or used a wheelchair to get around? This also goes for backbraces etc. If we are going to try to apply this technology to handicap mobilization, we need to make it fit underneath pants.
The APF and WPO have decided to allow this equipment during their powerlifting meets, and strangely enough, regardless of weight class, the top squat in all categories was about 5,000lb.
Set by, er, everyone.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Excuse me while I shamelessly try to attach myself to work that I can take no credit for.
Professor Kazerooni was my Masters Advisor while at Berkeley in 96-97. His lab is filled with completed and partially completed robotic mechanisms. He and his students have been working on things like this for years. Just to give you an idea of the advancements, check out the arms and legs of his Electric Power Extender. These things are a lot closer to any Mech than the BLEEX. Then again, these things were attached to several Pentium era PCs and several LARGE wall mounted power racks. The reduction in size is remarkable. Imagine walking into the lab and seeing these big, shiny, robotic legs hanging in the middle of the room for the first time. It is a very cool "oooh" and "ahh" experience.
I'm a little disappointed that the project I and others worked on is not on his main page. Oh well.
Nothing to see here.
The website doesn't mention the extra-burly bike option for Critical Mass rides. Or the extra-large stash box attachment for holding your weed.
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"Get away from her, you BITCH!"
You must think in Russian.
> How could any of you think this is a bad thing?
For the same reason we think it would have been bad if 1930's Germany or 1950's USSR had had this technology - we find ourselves unable to trust the 2000's US government to responsibly use the power this technology provides. We're afraid that the US government might find the prospect of low-casualty wars too tempting, and engage in them too frequently and for questionable reasons.
More subtly, those wars would create no less fear, frustration, and resentment among the attacked nations and peoples, meaning they would still be filled with a desire to fight back. And if they can't fight back against the armoured military, they'll fight back against a target they can hurt.
That's us, the civilians.
Terrorist attacks are the logical result of this type of asymmetric warfare. When you can't hurt your enemy's troops, you'll find a target you can hurt. When faced with a stealth bomber, the logical weapon is a box cutter.
Sad - and scary - but not a surprise. Stronger weapons will not win modern ideological wars; stronger diplomacy will.
Anyone seen my pants? I left them right here.
What did you do with them, young man!
You don't expect me to believe they just up and walk away....oh wait...
What'll be funny is when the line at the airport is held up by some pissed granny in an exoskeleton suit throwing a security screener into a 30 foot ceiling for "making her miss her flight".
> This technology could easily make it possible for
> soldiers to carry very heavy armor that could
> possibly protect them from most all small arms
> fire and possibly even some heavy fire.
Due to the high-quality body armor already used in the US army and due to the use of armored troop transports, the main source of direct-fire casualties in Iraq has been from rocket-propelled grenades. These weapons can penetrate the armor on light troop transports, so any solution to protect infantrymen from RPGs would require such heavy armor that the result would be like making each man his own light tank.
The technology isn't even close to being there for that transformation, and neither would it be useful. The military can already pound the enemy into paste with nigh-invulnerable tanks, but restoring order afterwards requires interacting with the people, something that is hardly more possible in a mech than in a tank.
I hope that the military (imagine Doom, Quake etc., carrying all those weapons and ammo for real,) get over itself and lets a less powerful one go...
:-) to make way up and down the subway steps.
I don't need a ruggedized one (although in NYC it probably should be
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Am I the only one in the world who ever watched the (brief) TV series called "Mantis"? I'd like to believe that I didn't just imagine a whole TV show. Anyone who HAS seen it, you know what I'm referring to.
It's prolly more likely to see this thing get more use in a wharehouse/loading facility than military or medical use. It's most likely too awkward/slow for use in the military, and until it becomes easily usabile, it's useless for medical purposes. Right step in right direction ? Sure... but I see this as being more useful as a loader such as seen in Aliens (the movie). Being able to get a decent carrying capacity and stuff in a tight spot is highly advantageous for maximizing floor space usage.
We're never going to lose a Big Game with those legs.
Step two... add giant robot.
Step three... BATTLEMECH.
And #$$#$@#@, YES there is more work to it than just coming up with the damned sacrosanct idea. Have you not ever written code? The devil, the WORK, is in the details. Any writer will tell you this about his craft. I guaran-damn-tee you that writers spend far more time working out plot structures then working on the details of their "inventions." The inventions are plot tools. Devices for moving the friggin story along. If the writer really wanted the thing to materialize, he'd $#$(*&% BUILD it. See John Carmack.
Servo Magazine (an offshoot of Nuts and Volts - dedicated to robotics) is sponsoring a competition called "Tetsujin 2004" - aka "Iron Man" - a powered exoskeleton competition, October 21-23, in Santa Clara, CA.
From what I can gather, I imagine it to be basically what happens when you take powered exoskeletons, and combine them with allure of battle robotics (aka, BattleBots, Robot Wars, BotBash, etc). Essentially, let's see what "garage-level" robotics engineers can come up with in the spare time.
I think its going to be interesting - seeing how battle robotics have almost single-handedly brought back hobby robotics from the brink...
Check it out - deadline for registration is in June...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
someone else can point out the near endless series of side benefits that have been brought to humanity because of humanity's propensity towards killing eachother.
being only side effects of an enormous waste of resources and human life, they are not worth it. also, weapons are sometimes the side effect to peaceful inventions. the steam machine was not invented as a war tool, but for pumping out water in coal mines. eventually, this technology led to battleships.
For instance, the computers that you and I are both sitting in front are the progeny of now 'ancient' military computer systems built during WWII.
IIRC, they were first used to calculate range/tilt tables for artillery. essentially large calculators. but before that machines were used in data counting in a census. you do not need a full scale war to do some inventing.
We may never have had RADAR systems developed if not for war. Same goes with rocket and jet engine technology...
But the "Radio" technology has been invented by the Marconi in the early XX century. that pre-requisite for the radar was already there.
the fact is that thousands of airplanes were build in WW2. if the same amount of planes for civilian use were build, somebody would have inevitabily invented the radio for such a big market.
Sure, war sucks. Sure, people die from armed conflict. However, without war, we would most assuredly not have the technology that we have today as artists, philosophers and pacifists aren't as prone to push forward the march of technology as much as those that have been put into desperate situations that need a radical new way of thinking to achieve a goal do.
that is a mistaken argument. you are comparing people in need to invent something new because their life is on the line with a small group of people in totally different situation and preoccupation, to prove that nobody but scientists on the payroll of the military would push science and technology forward. what about commercial R&D labs? profit is a powerful incentive.
The point may be that there are some areas which are not profitable from a risk/profit point of view. inventing radar is really cheap. testing rockets is not. you get many of them blown away, before the technology is mature. only an entity like the government has pockets deep enough to bear the initial losses. in the end this particular project was profitable, because there was a market for thousands of ICBMs (i know, war).
today corporations are as big as some governments, they can finance big projects, if it makes sense from the financial point of view.
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That first one is so cool - you just get it going and it sort of ambles along.
Anybody play Rifts lately? Throw a nice anti-shock system on there and develop a Rail gun arm and use these babys just like a Glitter Boy armor. Ok maybe thats a few years away yet... (hears the sound of D20's rolling in the background)
Just think, you would never have to drive your car again to work. Just pop on your exoskeletan boots, run to work at 30mph (dont have to worry about such silly things as traffic jams). Of course, a collision with a guy running 30mph would be pretty nasty..
The last thing this kid in the video needs is less exercise.... they should shut the exoskeleton off and let the kid drag around the extra 170 pounds for about a hour a day.
Now that would be progress.
Re-defeat Bush in 2004.....
without the same system for arms and torso you would probably have a lot of soldiers shouting 'I've fallen and can't get up'! ;P
Good beginning though, but the arms are going to be the trickiest to develop by far!
With anything with obvious transhumanistic applications, why must there always be a reference to the disabled? Improving on the normal must scare people.
-I am an elective eunuch.
A mech could, quite reasonably, lift parts of fallen buildings to rescue people, disassemble roadblocks, dig irrigation canals, replace pipes...
As with human bipedalism, the advantage would be adaptablity. Three fingered hands alone would be able to handle very large custom tools like shovels, as well as any debri that happened to be lying around.
Of course, you could just give a tank robot arms if you felt like it... but then you'd need a raised cockpit or shoulder assembly to be able to use those arms in a decent range of motion. Mech on treads. Whee.
The point is, with this adaptability and the increase in labor efficiency, you're not just replacing a tank. You're replacing a tank, a group of six marines doing manual labor, a steamshovel, a forklift... and what you get in return is a forklift/steamshovel/work team/tank with nightvision, radar, gps, etc. Much, much more reasonable than duplicating those features in each one of those tools...
This would primarily be useful in the first few days after the U.S. sweeps in somewhere because of course commodity bulldozers are very cheap, compared to a battle machine, but as the last war showed, people have more and more come to expect the U.S. to have the entire territory that's been damaged repaired within a week. When your genuine bulldozers have to follow five days behind the advance sweeping in somewhere, you can't even begin reapirs until a week after securing the area.
Something about enabling heavy armour and weapons to be carried. Fine you protect yourself againts todays weapons. But then you come up against one of these. Who has bigger weapons than today.
What you just did was increase the blast radius so more innocent *people* can die?
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Now just add some powered arms and you've got yourself a loader Sigourney Weaver would be proud of.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Techno Trousers have arrived!
Have you read my blog lately?
I would love to see what happens when battery power goes off "a la Segway"
The last thing this kid in the video needs is less exercise. They should shut the machine off and let him drag that equipment around for a hour a day. Now we are talking about progress. Re-defeat Bush in 2004.....
A similiar device was built in the 1960's. It too used hydraulics for force supplement but wasn't too successful. Hydraulic control was analog and not digital and with all analog hydraulic robots, doesn't work very well. The power source was an issue and I can't recall whether it was part of the frame or not. There isn't a lot on web about it (used to be some, good luck finding it now), but it is in books (remember kiddies, those quaint things with writing on paper) One main difference was it included the arms and I think the basic idea was to use it for logging in hard to get areas. Of course 40 years of new materials, digital control and experience with other robots makes it all a bit easier. Still a long way to go, like real robots the whole lot needs wrapping in something tough so it's fragile actuators, sensors and cotnrols don't damaged or snagged
On 60 Minutes Morely Safer interviewed Nan Davis, a student at Wright State University, who'd recently become paraplegic after an accident. They inserted electromyongram electrodes in her muscles, put her on a stationary exercise bike powered by a motor, and recorded her muscles' responses with an Apple II. They built a set of articifial legs and announced their intention to build a small controller and play the recordings back into the device while it was strapped to her, and she would walk. They said at the time they expected it to be ready in 6 to 12 months. She herself stated she was so certain she would walk again, that she refused to get married to her fiance until she could walk up the aisle herself, using this device. She refused to do it in a wheel chair.
/ ferrall.pdf
Only a few weeks later, on the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather read the story of her wedding, with video footage showing her indeed walking up the aisle alone using this device. That was one of the two times I've seen Dan Rather cry on camera (the other being during Apollo 8's reading of Genisis during the first orbit of the moon). CBS made a TV movie based on this, called "First Steps".
I mean, more power to the troops. I carried enough gear enough miles during my enlistments to know how much this would be appreciated. But there's far better uses for this device, and I hope they'll focus as much on those.
I'm glad I didn't submit this as it was. I decided to try to find out what ever happened to Nan Davis. It was surprisingly easy, and came from a surprising source: http://jfs.ohio.gov/women/essayContest/essays2001
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
As it applies to anything other than an ad hominem attack? No.
So what if I get a little hot under the collar about this? At issue here is people's willingness, heck, frothing desire to attribute [insert virtue of your choice] to their pet celebrity. It's gotten to the point that people place far more importance on fame than real accomplishment. People would much rather play a doctor on television than be a doctor helping real people with real problems.
Heinlein wrote some good, thoughtful fiction, and now he's a great inventor? What's next, knighthood? Oh, wait.
You just go ahead, take me wrong all you want. I've read Heinlein, I like Heinlein, and I respect Heinlein for what he's accomplished. He elevated science fiction to a new degree of moral, societal and scientific relevancy. The man was a damn good writer. An inspiration to millions.
But only that. An inspiration.
But even if the exoskeleton was designed so that it could not move in a position contrary to natural human movement, could it not still go haywire and move move too fast?
Is there a limit to how fast human legs can move before injury occurs?
Some people can do the splits, or put their feet behind their heads. Are we going to mimic those people, or unflexible schmucks like me who, on a good day, can just barely touch our toes? I suppose you could calibrate it to each person's range of motion, but even then, there's a pretty big difference between slowly easing into a stretch and being suddenly pulled into one. The latter can cause serious damage.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
He was also on Letterman shortly after 9/11, and broke down completely when describing doing the all day newscast. He asked Letterman a couple times to cut to commercial, and after trying to convince Rather that no one would think any less of him for crying on air, Letterman finally acceded
Coming back on topic, am I correct in understanding that the device plays back a preprogrammed step? So pressing alternating right and left leg buttons causes you to walk, but you have no ability to do anything that has not already been programmed in?
Yet another example of how the Awesome Power of Robotechnology is transforming our lives!
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I have seen this thing in Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit: Die Technohose (Sorry, I know only the Geman translation). it's a story about an inventor, who builds an apparatus like that BLEEX, but then a malicious penguin (!) steels the remote controll of the apparatus and uses it for his dastardly plans. How Strange...
Ni.