For the first time in the United States, someone has stood up and walked around in Cyberdyne’s powered exoskeleton. Somehow, thanks to divine intervention from Norri Kageki at GetRobo, that person was me. IEEE Spectrum was there too, getting it all on video:

After the jump, read all the juicy details… There’s a lot of ‘em. (Read more…)

A few hours ago, I was the first person in the United States to try out Cyberdyne’s powered exoskeleton:

More coming soon, but it was incredible.

The woman in this picture is Amanda Boxtel, who has had a T11/12 spinal injury for 18 years. She’s a paraplegic, but she’s now able to walk with the aid of eLEGS, a robotic exoskeleton system from Berkeley Bionics. You probably remember Berkeley Bionics from their cargo-carrying exoskeleton, HULC, which they’ve since licensed to Lockheed Martin for production for the military. eLEGS is largely based on HULC, except designed for (eventual) home use. The system is relatively light at 45 pounds, and you strap into it by yourself while sitting down. After only a few hours of practice, paraplegics are able to use eLEGS to stand up and walk:

More, after the jump. (Read more…)

Kevin Warwick was arguably* the world’s first cyborg in 1998 when he got an RFID chip implanted into his arm that allowed him to interact with computer systems using a part of his body. In this interview, he talks about the present and future of cybernetics.

The first part of the interview is pretty tame (except for the big about the brain cell controlled robots, which is very interesting), but then Kevin starts talking about how he had his nervous system hooked up to his wife’s nervous system and things get a little freaky. Good stuff.

[ Motherboard ] VIA [ BB ]

*If you choose to define a cyborg as a person who has some form of technology integrated into their bodies to enable them to interact with the world in a different way, as opposed to (and this may be more generalized) a human with electronic enhancements, in which case the first person with a pacemaker (a guy named Arne Larsson) might have been the first cyborg back in 1958.

It’s been 2 years since we last checked out a robot arm controlled by a monkey brain. That arm (from back in 2008) had only four degrees of freedom, and this one is a whopping seven, but that doesn’t seem to phase the monkey much, as it deftly uses brain control to grasp a knob with the arm and receive a tasty reward.

At this point, the monkey is relying on two brain implants (in the arm and hand areas of its motor cortex) to interpret nerve impulses and use them to control the arm. The fantasy is (as least, as this technology applies to people with disabilities) is to make the controller non-invasive, and some of the technology is sort of there. Sort of. But perhaps more importantly, this experiment shows just how capable and adaptable a brain is, and the potential is very exciting. Or at least, my brain is excited… My body, on the other hand, is getting a little worried about its potential obsolescence.

[ MotorLab ] VIA [ IEEE ]

The future of robotics is here. It’s **drum roll** cockroaches? Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (say that 10 times fast!) is developing technology that allows cockroaches to be controlled via a tiny chip on a cockroach’s back that sends electrical signals to make the roach move. “It’s like a cattle prod for cockroaches,” says William Charlton, an associate professor at Texas A&M.

But why cockroaches? Well, the same chip that communicates remotely with a computer to prod the roach has several types of radiation sensor, meaning that it can detect whether conditions in a given area are safe for humans.

“Cockroaches really are the perfect medium for this,” says William Charlton, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the university and a principal investigator on the project. “They can go for extraordinarily long periods of time without food. They exist on every continent except Antarctica. They’re very radiation resistant, and they can carry extremely large amounts of weight compared to their body mass.”

If Charlton gets his way, we’ll have mini-armies of 20 or so roaches surveying areas as large as one square kilometer, all controlled by remote operators, all reporting data about chemical conditions in the area.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords

It may look almost cartoonish in proportion, but the picture above is the real deal. How long till we see “Control Your Own Cockroach” kits for the kids?

[ NDIA ] VIA [ Wired ]

From the folks at RSLSteeper in the UK comes BeBionic, “The next generation of fully articulated myo-electric hands.” Being myoelectric means that these hands can be controlled by electrical signals from the human brain. Not only can these bionic digits produce still art straight out of a zombie flick, they’re actually quite… dare I say… handy? “Complete with a range of naturally compliant grip patterns that provide repeatable accuracy, our powerful new hands combine innovative technology with life-like appearance.” In other words these things are AALLIIIVVVEEEEE… or at least pretty darn close to it. RSLSteeper has also released a nifty teaser video showing off just how accurate these things are:

Tell me those things don’t look awesome!

Now, maybe I shouldn’t be talking, seeing as I’ve made some pretty destructive robots, but as cool as these bionic hands look, I always find robots that are capable of actually hurting someone (read: Kung-Fu grip) the slightest bit creepy, and this is no exception. I mean, if we’ve learned anything from The Addams Family, it’s that hands with a mind of their own can only mean bad news.

At the same time, I do have to applaud RSLSteeper- if the BeBionic hands are as nimble as the video demonstrates, then they could have some very important applications, both in helping amputees, and in making more life-like androids.

What’s your take? Handy, or creepy?

[ BeBionic ] VIA [ Engadget ]

Even if you’ve got a micro air vehicle that provides its own power for thrust, like a Rhinoceros beetle with an implanted optical lobe stimulation controller, you still need power for the communication system itself. One ideal solution is to try and harvest electricity from the insect, but a more realistic approach (at the moment) might be a dependable long-life battery, and nothing is more dependable and long-life and potentially dangerous than a nuclear battery.

Don’t worry, it’s not at all dangerous. The nuclear battery in question is powered by nickel-63, a “mildly radioactive” isotope with a half-life of about 12 years, meaning that the battery could easily provide power for a decade or two or even as long as a century. Funded by DARPA and developed at Cornell, the battery generates enough power to emit a high-power RF communication pulse once every 3 minutes or so. Here’s how it works:

The RFID transmitter converts the energy of radioactive decay into mechanical movement in a MEMS device. A tiny silicon and piezoelectric cantilever, 40 micrometers thick and 4 to 8 millimeters long, is suspended on a chip over the radioactive thin film like a diving board over a pool. Electrons ejected from the radioisotope accumulate on the cantilever, giving it a negative charge. Now the cantilever is attracted to the (relatively) positive Ni-63 thin film and begins to bend toward it. As soon as it bends enough to touch the Ni-63, the charges jump back onto the thin film, and the cantilever, freed of the accreted electrons, springs back to its starting position. The power is generated when the cantilever snaps back to its original position. It continues this way until the isotope’s radioactivity is depleted.

The entire system, which is just a prototype and has not been optimized for either size or power output, is just 1 square centimeter in size. Besides nuclear powered remote control cyborg insects, researchers suggest that the batteries could be used in a variety of long-term sensing and monitoring applications.

VIA [ IEEE ]

Author (and screenwriter) and robot professional Daniel Wilson got a chance to test out the HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) exoskeleton while filming a show for the History Channel. He wrote an article about the experience for Gizmodo, a few bits of which I’ve excerpted here for you:

My first impression: The straps are too big. The HULC was built with military money and it is designed to fit army guys. And soldiers have big thighs, apparently. I yank the Velcro straps as tight as possible, then strap my shoes into its open-toed boots. I shrug on the backpack and clasp the chest strap. I am now wearing an exoskeleton. Turned off, the device is heavy; it’s like wearing a scuba tank on dry land. But once the researchers switch it on, HULC stands up on its own, with me inside.

Like a video game that breaks the human face down into just a few polygons, my new exo-walk consists of just a few gross movements. Knee lift, foot out, foot down. Repeat. It lacks the fluidity of my normal walk, but I don’t fall. And oh yeah, every movement is accompanied by the loud whine of electric motors. Each step sounds like reeee (that’s the motor) followed by ker-thump, as my foot touches down.

After the practice run, it’s time to hit the hallway. I immediately notice that my gait is becoming more fluid. I can even balance on one leg. This is because the machine is learning to anticipate my every move. The HULC is no dumb brute. It is constantly sensing the force of my movements and forming a model of how I walk. It’s getting to know me, exoskeleton-style.

Read the whole thing over at Gizmodo.

[ Gizmodo ]
[ HULC ]

DEKA’s prosthetic robot arm is commonly referred to as the “Luke” arm, but this new robotic hand may be more appropriate for that title, at least as far as the movie goes. Not only is this artificial hand, called the SmartHand, controlled directly by the brain (as opposed to actuated by muscle movements), but it provides some degree of feedback to the nerves of the user, including pressure and even texture (!). So this guy can actually feel things through the robot hand. It’s a neural interface. Like in Star Trek. Welcome to the future, people.

[ Press Release (Translated) ]
[ BBC ] VIA [ Communist Robot ]