From Comics to real life - Iron man could help disabled people




Walking into a robotic exo skeleton that could enhance your strength, keep the body active while recovering from an injury or even serve as a prosthetic limb is no longer science fiction. Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai a system and information engineer at Japan's University of Tsukuba has created a real Iron Man exo skeleton, the so called Robot Suit Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL).

The exo skeleton weighs 50.7 pounds (23 kilograms) and is powered by a 100-volt AC battery (that lasts up to five hours, depending upon how much energy the suit exerts). HAL exoskeleton primarily to enhance the wearer's existing physical capabilities 10-fold. The exoskeleton detects—via a sensor attached to the wearer's skin—brain signals sent to muscles to get them moving. The exoskeleton's computer analyzes these signals to determine how and with how much it must move force to assist the wearer. The company claims on its site that the device can also operate autonomously, based on data stored in its computer, which is key when used by people suffering spinal cord injuries or physical disabilities resulting from strokes or other disorders.

CYBERDYNE (no relation to the "Skynet" in the Terminator movies) a Japanese company responsible for the suit, have started construction of a new laboratory and expect to mass-produce up to 500 robotic power suits in the years to follow.
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Fully Functional Artificial Limb

In the meanwhile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) $80 million program, Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 (RP2009),

nationwide research is underway to develop a fully functional (motor and sensory) upper limb that responds to direct neural control. Physicians at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) developed an intuitive way for amputee patients to control a robotic arm by surgically rearranging the nerves that normally connect to the lost limb. This allows patients to control prosthetic arms simply by thinking about it. While the technique, targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), was first demonstrated in 2007, they reported successful tests among several patients this month.
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There are more realistic prosthesis been developed, the Modular Arm System supplied by RSLSteeper is truly a modular system with many interchangeable parts and the Europeans responsible for the "Cyberhand" have, along with it's scifi-esque moniker, given their creation some scifi-esque capabilities that bode well for amputees and Luke Skywalker wannabees the world over. The bionic hand not only has individually functioning digits, including an opposing thumb for the multitude of actions that require one, but those fingers should be able to feel, yet still only take a relatively small number of nerves to control. It works in much the same way as a real hand; by using synthetic tendons that run through each finger, the artificial hand only needs 6 motors to control motion. So far they've created a touch sensitive prototype, and now it looks like their next task is to attach the hand and fire it up.

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