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A Glimpse of the Future: Robots Aid Japan's Elderly Residents

USA Today, 11/5/09

Abstract:

It looks like a scene from Robocop or one of the Terminator movies: A human steps into a sleek robot suit and is miraculously transformed, suddenly capable of astonishing feats of strength.

But this is no sci-fi film — it's a promotional video by Cyberdyne, a Japanese electronics company. It shows an elderly male patient with Parkinson's disease being strapped into a robotic skeleton that, using sensors attached to the wearer's skin, reacts to nerve impulses and moves its "arms" and "legs" accordingly.

The robotic suit, known as the Hybrid Assisted Limb (or HAL), is designed to boost its wearer's strength by a multiple of 10. In July, it allowed the patient at the Seiko En nursing home in Tsurugashima, Japan, to walk for the first time in two years, Cyberdyne CEO Yoshiyuki Sankai says.

"I was surprised," Sankai admits. "I expected him to stand up, but not to walk."

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