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Posts Tagged ‘walking’

Jobs of the future

Before he starts law school next fall, the recent University of California-Berkeley graduate is working for the team who designed his robotic exoskeleton, named Austin in his honor. He spent nine months honing the design before his May 14 graduation, and he has been continuing his work, helping technicians make continual adjustments and refinements. CNET describes Whitney’s new gig, in which he is paid to spend about six hours a day testing the bionic legs.

On a typical day, Whitney is attached to a tether cable to prevent him from falling, and he completes two tests in the suit, walking around the lab of lab of mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni. He is paid to help the engineers test new gaits, walker strategies and new components, CNET says. The goal is to produce a prototype device that can help any person with a spinal cord injury.

Whitney was in prime physical shape when he crashed into a tree in 2007, leaving his legs paralyzed, and his upper-body strength remains an advantage — he can lift himself out of his wheelchair and attach himself to the suit. The 40-pound suit is powered by a battery the user wears like a backpack, and a computer that drives the actuators that move the legs.

Kazerooni is also the founder of Berkeley Bionics, which is producing the eLEGS exoskeleton, itself modeled after Lockheed Martin’s HULC military exoskeleton. The eLEGS will be offered to rehabilitation centers for use under medical supervision, but a suit modeled after Austin’s would be simpler and cheaper, and ideally easier to use.

“We want to make the Model T version of an exoskeleton," Whitney told CNET.

[CNET]

Austin Whitney, a history and political science major at the University of California-Berkeley, spent nine months working with Homayoon Kazerooni, creator of the HULC exoskeleton and the eLegs rehabilitation system.

Whitney used a controller switch on a walker to direct the exoskeleton, which was strapped around his legs. It swung his legs forward, moving him toward Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and a grinning Kazerooni.

The exoskeleton was a stripped-down, basic version of previous walking machines Kazerooni has designed. It will cost about $15,000, roughly the same as a souped-up motorized wheelchair, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. By contrast, the eLegs system unveiled last fall will cost about $90,000. Like the eLegs, it requires the use of a power pack and a crutch or walker. Whitney controlled the system using a switch on the walker, enabling him to take a step, stand up or sit down.

Whitney wrapped his car around a tree in July 2007 after sharing some drinks with his friends, about a month after graduating from high school. His spine was severed above his hips, paralyzing his legs. He quit drinking, and 10 days after his release from the hospital he enrolled in community college, eventually transferring to Cal. He worked with Kazerooni’s lab to improve the prototype — it has flatter feet, telescoping legs and locking hand controls, thanks to his input, the Chronicle reports.

He thought he would never walk again, he said after the ceremony.

“It was truly the greatest gift anyone has ever given me,” he said.

[via Engadget]

And they're stronger as a result. Just like babies!

Bongard built a genetic algorithm and put his virtual robot brains through five thousand simulations. That algorithm causes the virtual robot (represented in a three-dimensional space as a four-legged creature with a jointed spine) to experiment with different forms of movement, with the eventual aim of getting to a light without falling over. Mostly, the robots try three different forms of movement: crawling (like a snake or tadpole), skulking with splayed legs (like a lizard), or walking upright (like a four-legged mammal).

But the aim was to study the robots that move through those forms of motion, evolving from snake-like writhing to dog-like walking. Bongard says "the snake and reptilian robots are, in essence, training wheels," allowing the robots to find motion patterns with a minimum of risk. After they've got the hang of forward momentum, figuring out balance to walk upright is no sweat.

As it turns out, those robots that began as crawlers and moved through the other stages of movement ended up much more steady and efficient than those thrust into upright walking from the beginning. That evolution prepared the robots for challenges even beyond merely walking--they responded much more effectively to impediments like, um, being poked with a stick (seriously). The evolved 'bots were able to remain upright while their non-evolved siblings toppled over.

Eventually, Bongard built a simple model out of a few Lego Mindstorms kits to test his findings in the real world. You can see in the video above that the robots learn to crawl, then scuttle, then walk, just as in the simulations. It might be a simple proof of concept, but it is incredibly promising: Aside from all the end-of-days terror that an adaptable robot naturally invites, that sort of mind would also have incredible uses in fields ranging from medicine to the military to construction.

[UVM via SmartPlanet]

The panels, made by the Dutch company Sustainable Dance Club, compress by 0.4 inches every time they are stepped on, and a motor converts that mechanical energy into electrical power. According to Sustainable Dance Club, a person dancing on one of the tiles can generate between 2 and 20 watts, depending on their weight. Toulouse plans to install the panels in the city center, and test them out for two weeks.

However, the fine chaps over at the Register have done some math, and concluded that the panels can't possibly provide enough power to light the streets. Based on their calculations, even if every resident of the city spent an hour walking every day through a city where every square inch of sidewalk absorbed their energy, it wouldn't provide enough energy to light the streets or significantly offset the cost of lighting them.

So sure, a large city filled with skinny people may not be the best place to implement this technology. But transport this tech to Huntington, West Virginia, where pedestrians probably generate two or three times the power per person of the average Frenchman, and maybe you could start producing some real power.

[The Guardian, and The Register]