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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.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hartree on Wednesday August 07 2019, @03:04PM
This was mentioned a week or so ago in the post on Siggraph. Also, it's been done and better for quite a long time by costumers. (My previous reply:)
"The furries have been making those for decades. A couple even with myoelectronic pickups to sync their movement to the wearer's walking (Frankly a rather silly noise prone way to do it when a couple switch in the costume feet work so much better). See http://www.wolftronix.com/animatronics.htm [wolftronix.com] [wolftronix.com] for examples. That's just one of the makers. There are a number of others.
They really can alter your gate/movement a lot. I'm told trying to walk with one programmed intentionally to be out of sync is "challenging".