Robotic skeleton to fight paralysis
Japan's Matsushita company unveiled a robotic suit, eyed to be marketed in two years, that will help people who are partially paralyzed rehabilitate the rest of their bodies.
When a person who suffered a stroke moves his or her active arm while wearing the suit, the paralyzed other arm will make the same motion by stretching and bending compressors that act as muscles.
By repeating the arm movements, the person wearing the robotic suit can train to regain use of his or her limbs, the designer said.
The robotic suit, which slips over a person's upper body and arms, weighs only 1.8 kilograms (four pounds).
It was developed jointly by Activelink Co. -- a venture of Matsushita Electric Industrial which is best known for the Panasonic brand -- and Kobe Gakuin University.
Activelink technical director Keisuke Ueda got the idea to construct the suit when he visited a hospital in Japan's western Hyogo prefecture.
"I got the idea when doctors told me what they needed for patients' rehabilitation," Ueda said.
"By helping the paralyzed arm stretch and bend like the good arm, patients can remember the feelings of moving the arm themselves," he said.
Activelink said it plans to start testing the device at a Hyogo hospital and to sell the product in the business year to March 2009.
The robotic suit will likely be sold initially at about two million yen (about 17,000 dollars) for use at rehabilitation facilities.
But the company eventually wants to mass produce it for individual use and cut the cost down to about 250,000 yen.
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