http://n.yam.com/afp/life/200810/20081009457681.html
日本推出機器人裝 造福癱瘓病人和高齡者
法新社╱劉學源 2008-10-09 00:50
（法新社東京七日電）日本筑波大學教授山海嘉之今天在記者會上宣布，他經營的創投企業將從本週起量產和租售福祉醫療用機器人裝（robot suits），藉由偵測穿戴者的下一步動作，可協助癱瘓病人自行站立和步行等。
山海表示：「目前已到了向全世界推介此種技術的時候。」
名為「HAL」的此種金屬製機器人裝，利用電池驅動，穿戴在身上後，藉由偵測肌肉動作時身體表面的微弱電流，將信號傳送給馬達，協助身體動作。 預定一年生產五百套下半身型機器人裝，腰腿有毛病或高齡者穿用後，可協助他們自行站立和更輕鬆走動。
此機器人裝重十一公斤，能讓穿用者隨心所欲自動移動肌肉。
另一型HAL原型機器人裝，能讓穿用者抱起一百磅重（約四十五公斤）物體，但感覺只有幾磅重而已。
山海表示：「我們期望未來能在建築工地使用這種機器人裝，建築工人往往必須攜帶重物。」
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20081007/tc_afp/lifestylejapantechnologydisabledrobot_081007111005
Japan's 'Cyberdyne' robot suit ready for hospital (AFP)
Posted on Tue Oct 7, 2008 7:10AM EDT
TSUKUBA, Japan (AFP) - A Japanese professor announced Tuesday he was introducing robot suits for paralysed people, helping them to walk again by detecting their next move and lifting their muscles.
"The time has come to introduce this technology to the world," Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at Tsukuba University near Tokyo, announced at a news conference.
Sankai's company producing the robot suits is named Cyberdyne Inc., the same as the sci-fi office in the "Terminator" films. But there is no risk of Arnold Schwarzenegger's character coming to blow it up.
"I believe technology becomes useful only when it works for people," he said at Cyberdyne's new office. "I refuse any possible military use of my robot suits."
Cyberdyne will start leasing this week 500 units of the battery-powered robot suit to assist paralysed patients at hospitals and rehabilitation centres.
Sankai showed video footage of a man paralysed from the waist down standing and walking as he wore the robotic limbs.
The robot suits -- dubbed HAL, or "Hybrid Assistive Limb" -- detect natural electrical currents that pass over the surface of the skin anticipating muscle movement.
HAL, which weighs 11 kilograms (24 pounds), then automatically moves the muscle in the way the person intended.
"You don't feel the weight of the robot at all," said Takashi Hama, an executive official of Daiwa House Industry Co., a Japanese construction firm investing into Cyberdyne.
Another prototype of HAL allows the wearer to carry 100 pounds even though it feels like just a few pounds.
"We are looking at the future use of the robot suits at construction sites, where workers have to carry heavy materials," Hama said.
Cyberdyne is renting out the robot suits for five years at a time. Sankai said that some European nations, particularly in Scandinavia, have expressed interest in introducing them.
Sankai's invention first came into prominence in 2006 when he helped Seiji Uchida -- who has been bound to a wheelchair since a car accident in 1983 -- try to climb a peak in the Swiss Alps.
"I see big possibilities for HAL, which not only helps handicapped people move on their own but also assists caretakers in caring for someone like me," Uchida, now 46, said at the news conference.
"The robot will lift the psychological burden we feel when having to ask to be lifted up," he said.
While Uchida and his party failed to make it to the top of the 4,164-metre (13,661-foot) Breithorn peak, Uchida said that the robot suit made his dream come true.
"I asked professor Sankai directly to help me take up the challenge of mountain climbing," Uchida recalled.
"It's been two years since. I think the latest model has a better battery system and some improvement in the knee joints."
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