Robot Suit Helps The Disabled, Not Ready For Crimefighting Yet

Sure My Spoon could be used to help the elderly walk and get around. Or maybe help you to lift up some sort of heavy item like a desk. It’s even a great idea to help out disabled persons who just need to do some quick tasks for a month. But here at CB Tech we think the new exoskeleton robot could best be used to throw cars and fight injustice. To the millions who are confined to the house or even bed, Yoshiyuki Sankai has developed a robot suit that will allow them to do the routine tasks the rest of us enjoy daily.

Sankai, a professor at the University of Tsukaba developed the suit to help disabled persons just be a bit more normal. The suit doesn’t just afford maneuverability; it offers patients the ability to move their limbs at will. If you want to eat some soup, then just will your arm to move and it does. This is pretty amazing stuff. We joke about cyborg warriors and tossing cars, but is that honestly too far away? The suit itself can be leased for nearly $600 a month or it can be purchased for a considerable amount more.

Daiwa House Industry Co. is building a manufacturing facility to enable production of 400 to 500 suits annually in 2008. Robots and machines for helping the disabled are gaining increasing popularity in Japan, and The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization said that the target for mass market appeal is 20 years in the future. At that time it may be possible for me to visit my parents and still be able to take a walk through the park. That’s if I can get time off from hunting my nemesis who’ll be in the middle of a scheme to melt the polar ice caps with a giant death ray based in the Adirondack Forest Reserve.