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posted by n1 on Saturday June 28 2014, @08:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the waiting-for-gray-fox-edition dept.

A motorized exoskeleton, designed to help paralyzed people walk again, just earned U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. It is the first such device to do so.

The device, called ReWalk, straps on a user's body and helps those with certain spinal-cord injuries to sit, stand, and walk. Users have to wear a backpack to carry the ReWalk's computer and battery. They also have to wear a wrist device with buttons to tell the motorized legs when to stand up, sit down, or start walking. But it's not like users are punching every step into their wrist controllers — ReWalk's legs also respond to movements of the user's torso, so that leaning forward triggers a step.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @08:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @08:46AM (#61292)

    welcome our FDA overlords.

    Do I need FDA approval for frosty piss?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:01PM (#61357)

      You need an expensive prescription.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday June 28 2014, @09:33AM

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday June 28 2014, @09:33AM (#61297) Journal
    might be in order. He has been working on a very ingenious mechanical artwork thingie that is little more than a series of interoperating levers that smoothly translates a rotary motion to the motion of walking.

    He calls his art a "Strandbeest". [strandbeest.com] However this link doesn't do to much for me because it seems to rely heavily on scripting and my end keeps kicking it out.

    However, if you just want to see this thing work, here's a YouTube link. [youtube.com].

    When you watch this, keep in mind there is not one transistor or hydraulic cylinder in it. Its doing some amazing motion. If you study further, you will see he has invested a lot of time understanding the forces and positions of various triangles formed from rods with moving vertices.

    I think its a beautiful piece of work, with a lot of potential.

    If you want to pursue further, I have given you all the keywords for further searches.
    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by tynin on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:46PM

      by tynin (2013) on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:46PM (#61341) Journal

      This made my morning. Thanks for sharing.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:02AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:02AM (#61299) Journal
    <cynical mode="on">Must be funny to have one drink too many at parties while wearing it.
    May lead to increased business for the manufacturer.</cynical>
    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:17AM (#61304)

    Of course this is for making the lame walk, not for killer cyborgs...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:10PM (#61335)

      Of course this is for making the lame walk, not for killer cyborgs...

      Or for help killing ruthless xenomorphs...

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYzWUjxnESg [youtube.com]

      Potatocammed through the 'analog hole'
      to avoid takedown due to
      copyright infringement. Under the
      old USA copyright system, this clip and
      the movie it came from would hit the public
      domain effective 2014-07-18, 28 years after
      its release on 1986-07-18.

      The movie poster is ICONIC!

      http://www.impawards.com/1986/posters/aliens_ver1_xlg.jpg [impawards.com]

    • (Score: 2) by carguy on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:20PM

      by carguy (568) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:20PM (#61376)

      Here is some early research. The Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL) "man amplifier" from 1962 was envisioned to be used like a fork lift, that you climb into and "wear"--
          www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/290070.pdf
      Lots of information on joint motions, balance constraints, and other basic details. 75 pages with concepts and plots.

      Intro:
      "Modern man, with his reasoning power, memory and nervous system,
      is capable of controlling forces and machines of tremendous size and speed.
      On the other hand, in many instances, his muscular development, from the
      standpoints of strength and endurance, does not adequately complement his
      highly refined intelligence. The Man Amplifier principle conceivably would
      alleviate this mismatch of human intelligence and muscular power."

      p22:
      "The above data indicating the normal ranges of some of the human
      joints for certain particular motions of the limbs are useful in that they
      serve as a guide for estimating the joint range requirements of a Man
      Amplifier device. However, several factors revealed in this study of human
      joints are worth noting since they may present major problems affecting
      Man Amplifier component designs. One factor is that the instantaneous
      centers of rotation of human joints do not remain fixed at a point, i. e. , the
      motion is not circular as would be obtained in a pin-centered joint. This
      means that, to avoid painful results, the man must have freedom to adjust
      his position in the exoskeletal structure to maintain his instantaneous centers
      in alignment with the exoskeletal joint axes. For most joints, the magnitude
      of the joint center shift is probably quite small; e.g., in reference 4, it
      is stated that, at the elbow joint, the cluster of instantaneous centers range
      over an area of about one-half-inch diameter. At the shoulder, however,
      the effective center of the composite system of joints between the trunk and
      humerus moves over a wide range of locations. The problem visualized
      here has to do with the sensors used to control the skeletal motions. If,
      because of the shifting about of his joint centers, the man must be able to
      move around inside the Man Amplifier structure, the sensors must be so
      designed as to permit this movement without producing signals which would
      result in unwanted forces or motions of the machine."

    • (Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:47PM

      by tathra (3367) on Saturday June 28 2014, @11:47PM (#61442)

      as soon as a viable "combat" exoskeleton is available, they'll all be snapped up by the military, which doesn't care about approval from other agencies and often flat-out ignores them (like when the FDA told them to stop using the anthrax vaccine, they kept on using it), and often uses its troops as guinea pigs, er, alpha and beta testers.

      the military has been working for quite a while to get a combat exoskeleton, so hopefully now that one has been approved for civilian use, they wont be too far off.