New exoskeleton lightens the load
The latest exoskeleton developed by researchers from MIT seems like an important step forward (excuse the pun) for a technology that could ultimately give ordinary people extraordinary strength and help disabled people to walk again.
This particular contraption does not give the wearer added strength, but it makes the load they are carrying lighter. It transfers the weight of their backpack, via several tubes that run along each leg, to the ground.
According to the MIT team behind the design, this can makes a 36kg load about 80% lighter. Details of the project will appear in the September issue of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics, in a paper entitled A Quasi-Passive Leg Exoskeleton for Load-Carrying Augmentation.
It sounds great, but there is a drawback. Unfortunately, the device “interferes” with the wearer’s natural way of walking. “You can definitely tell it’s affecting your gait,” says Conor Walsh, one of the researchers who can be seen wearing the exoskeleton in the picture above.
Interestingly, though, just a few months ago we dug up a patent filed by the same research team. It covers a way to make exoskeletons more accurately mimic the way humans walk. So it definitely seems like a project to keep an eye on. Perhaps it won’t be long before were all running around carrying impossibly heavy bags thanks to commercial exoskeletons.