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LAS VEGAS – At the aforementioned time Hyundai brings autonomy to driving, the company is bringing walking to paraplegics. Presently, people who accept employ of their arms but not their legs tin can strap on H-MEX, the Hyundai Medical Exoskeleton. Wearing H-MEX, information technology's possible to walk, climb stairs, sit and return to standing. The user needs canes to maintain balance and to trigger the next action: step, sit, or climb. Hyundai is also showing off H-WEX, the Hyundai Waist Exoskeleton, a powered dorsum-and-thigh mechanism with bending and unbending capabilities. Information technology augments the ability of able-bodied workers to pick up and put down heavier loads, subject to limits on the worker'southward artillery, which are non augmented. I tried both and they practice work.

H-MEX: 4 hours of mobility per charge

The Hyundai Medical Exoskeleton is an 18kg (40 pounds) aluminum frame that straps to your feet, legs, and back, with hinges at the knee and waist; the module in back contains electronics and a 222 watt-60 minutes lithium bombardment (a 15-inch MacBook Pro battery is 76-Wh) that operates for upwards to four hours. The user is strapped in at the waist, knees and feet.

This is not a self-balancing Segway walker for the handicapped. You must be able to use the carbon cobweb walking canes to lean (slightly) and so H-MEX knows which way to move and turn. The left cane has 4 buttons in a diamond pattern for the various motion functions: sit, stand, walk, stair walk, turn. Press the front-about button and yous take one stride forrad.

Hyundai-exo_764A8513-edit2

What it's similar: H-MEX beats the alternative

Hyundai technicians strapped me in and I got a adventure to try walking with H-MEX. Suiting upward takes a couple minutes and you need aid to get the exoskeleton lined upward and to attach the uttermost of the straps at the knees and feet (there's a metal walking plate that goes under the feet / shoes).

Walking is simplicity itself: Lean forwards, extend, say, the left cane forward further than the right, press the front push on the left cane, and your correct foot and leg lifts upwardly and takes one step forward. Motility the right cane forrad, press the button, and your left leg takes a step. Wash, rinse, repeat. It takes merely a couple dozen steps to get the hang of walking, although y'all'd demand more fourth dimension to exist really proficient. Max speed is two.v km per 60 minutes, or ane.half-dozen miles per 60 minutes, near one-half the speed of a person out for an exercise walk. But it's mobility. A person who needs a wheelchair to get around isn't constrained past the lack of wheelchair ramps to get into a non-ADA building.

Your turn left or right in a shuffle step, little movements, guided by the cane placement. It works, amend if you (as a person who walks) don't try to guide the shuffling move with the legs, since that's not an option available to Hyundai'south eventual audience.

Hyundai exoskeleton

Non for everybody yet

There are some initial limits on H-MEX. Information technology'due south designed to work today with people 162-181cm (64-71 inches) tall, the average elevation female through the average summit male person. Larger or smaller exoskeletons tin can be built, and the exam unit I walked in could be adjusted, just not quickly.

The just trouble I had was with the fit on the buttons on the left cane; the front button seemed too far away and I wound up triggering the sit-down button instead, with no chair nearby. I was trailed past a pair of Hyundai technicians, so I was in no danger. It'due south a pocket-sized engineering matter to suit button placement, accept several sizes for different people, or for the user to adapt to button placement. Hyundai hasn't priced H-MEX. It still needs another twelvemonth or two of development before it goes into widespread testing. The components are probably several thousand dollars; the big question is how much of the R&D costs Hyundai wants to recoup and how quickly.

The market is certainly big enough. In 2009, the US population of seniors (65 and over) was xl million or thirteen% of the population; past 2030 when the terminal infant boomer turns 65, it will be 72 million or 19% of the population.

At the first of the electric current decade, Americans with disabilities numbered:

  • 30.6 one thousand thousand, hard walking or climbing stairs
  • 12.0 million, require assistance with daily tasks
  • 8.i million, vision difficulty
  • seven.6 one thousand thousand, hearing difficulty
  • three.half dozen meg, using a wheelchair, the potential market place for H-MEX
  • ii.four million, Alzheimer's, senility or dementia

Hyundai lifting-assist exoskeleton

Hyundai H-WEX lifting-assist exoskeleton

H-WEX for power lifting

Hyundai sees its wearable robots production line as an extension of autonomous driving: Some of the technology crosses over (AI, recognition technologies, ergonomics design). More than broadly, assistive robots help you lot become around before and after your trip in a self-driving machine. Its robots include H-MEX (farther above); H-LEX (Hyundai lifecaring exoskeleton) for lower limbs and modular exoskeleton (no acronym) for knees/hips; H-WEX (here) for "waist assist"; and HUMA, a full exoskeleton for effortless load carrying up to threescore kg or 132 pounds.

Hyundai exoskeleton

Hyundai H-WEX

H-WEX, the Hyundai Waist Extension, augments the force of a worker and helps him/her somewhat heavier loads with less run a risk of back injury. This smaller exoskeleton includes a difficult back brace (with the electronics and battery), a pair of backpack-similar straps, a large waist strap, and metal artillery going halfway downward the upper leg, with a metallic curved one-half circumvolve going across the front of the legs.

Bend down, H-WEX bends with you. (Just not hands downward to pick up something at floor level, I found.) Start to lift, and H-WEX applies lifting force in the back brace, transmitting torque to the leg braces, which tighten in front end. I picked up one box with almost no attempt, and so a 2nd box with a noticeable corporeality of weight, just yet with footling difficulty except for more than strain on my arms. The beginning carton felt every bit if information technology had 5 or 10 pounds, the 2d ten or 15. Open the cartons and the start one had a cannonball looking weight marked 20 (pounds), the second had 2 of the weights, 40 pounds full.

These are amounts you lot could lift on your own, but doing information technology all solar day would leave you lot with a sore dorsum and at some indicate during the work twelvemonth, possibly a bad back. The simply downside is that the H-WEX exoskeleton doesn't flex enough to brand it easy to bend over and pick a carton off the flooring. A carton at chair tiptop or higher, no problem. The H-WEX system goes on and comes off hands. If you need more lifting power, Hyundai is besides working on a full-body exoskeleton, HUMA.

If nosotros're looking at cocky-driving cars within 5 years, it'southward possible these robotic exoskeletons could exist here fifty-fifty sooner. Information technology'southward not yet clear if Hyundai sees its robo-skeletons as a profit centre or as corporate good works. Hyundai says information technology has not issued any pricing, fifty-fifty rough numbers. The need is at that place.