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Robot Tail Developed to Balance Out Human Body and Stop People From Falling Over

posted by chromas on Wednesday August 07 2019, @01:20PM   
from the strap-on dept.

"upstart" writes for Sulla:

Robot tail developed to balance out human body and stop people from falling over

The strap-on appendage, known as Arque, has been developed by researchers at Keio University in Japan.

[...] The tail can be be adjusted to fit whoever is wearing it by adding or removing modular "vertebrae", the Fast Company reports .

Small weights can also be inserted inside each vertebrae to help offset the wearer's weight.

[...] Artificial muscles inside the robotic tail control its movement by contracting and expanding using an external pressurised air system that resembles a lawn mower or giant vacuum.

Because the prototype tail has to remain tethered to this system, the wearer is not able to move very far using it.

[...] The tail was presented last week at the 2019 SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles , which focuses on graphics, gaming, and emerging technology.

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Original Submission

• Re:How would they sit? Re:How would they sit? (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 08 2019, @04:49PM (2 children)

  by HiThere (866) on Thursday August 08 2019, @04:49PM (#877543) Journal

  That's not an altogether bad idea, but what would you do for back support?

  --
  Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.

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• Re:How would they sit? (Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Thursday August 08 2019, @07:44PM

  by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Thursday August 08 2019, @07:44PM (#877617)

  More tail, obviously.

  Parent

• Re:How would they sit? (Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday August 08 2019, @10:38PM

  by arslan (3462) on Thursday August 08 2019, @10:38PM (#877657)

  awesome posture?

  Parent