Paralysed Claire Lomas walks London marathon in Robotic Suit

Claire Lomas, paralysed in a horse riding accident, had some dashing male company as she continued her quest to complete the 2012 London Marathon yesterday.

Claire, 32, of Eye Kettleby, near Melton, is almost six miles into the 26-mile course, which she is walking in a Cyclone robotic suit, called ReWalk.

She was joined for the last mile of yesterday's leg, in south London, by former tennis ace Tim Henman and his wife, Lucy.

"I couldn't believe I was actually there with Tim Henman," said Claire.

"He was my favourite tennis player of them all and it was so strange to see him there in front of me. He's exactly like he is on the telly. I told him he used to put me through hell watching him play."

Claire, who was paralysed from the chest down in a riding accident five years ago, is aiming to complete the route in two weeks to raise thousands of pounds for Spinal Research.

She said: "It was a tiring day and I felt a little sore but having Matt and Tim walk with me really spurred me on – they are both lovely blokes."

Claire is walking in a pioneering suit using motion sensors, electronics and computers to help paraplegics walk again.

Tomorrow's leg will see her pass the Cutty Sark on her way through Greenwich.

More information can be found on her website www.get-claire-walking.co.uk

Below is a short video showing Claire training before the marathon. Other Videos uploaded by Claire can be found here: www.youtube.com/user/clairelom

 

Scientist unveils mind-controlled robot for paraplegics

A professor at a Swiss university on Tuesday unveiled a robot that can be controlled by the brainwaves of a paraplegic person wearing an electrode-fitted cap, news agency ATS reported.

A paralysed man at a hospital in the town of Sion demonstrated the device, sending a mental command to a computer in his room, which transmitted it to another computer that moved a small robot 60 kilometres (37 miles) away in Lausanne.

The system was developed by Jose Millan, a professor at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne who specialises in non-invasive interfaces between machines and the brain.

The same technology can be used to drive a wheelchair, Millan said.

"Once the movement has begun, the brain can relax, otherwise the person would soon be exhausted," he said.

But the technology has its limits, he added. The brain signals can be scrambled if too many people are gathered around a wheelchair, for example.

Besides making paraplegics mobile, neuroprosthetics could be used to help patients recover lost senses, researchers said.

Professor Stephanie Lacour and her team are working on an "electric skin" for amputees, a glove fitted with tiny sensors that would send information directly to the user's nervous system.

Eventually, researchers say they hope to create mechanised prosthetics that are as mobile and sensitive as a natural hand, Lacour said.

Other researchers at Lausanne are working on enabling paraplegics to walk again with electrodes implanted in their spinal cords.

"The goal is that after a year of training with a robotic aide, the patient will be able to walk without a robot. The electrodes would stay implanted for life," said Professor Gregoire Courtine.

He said he is currently setting up clinical trials and hopes to run tests at Zurich's university hospital within a year.

Paralysed Claire Lomas faces the London Marathon in the UK’s first ReWalk suit

On 22 April, Claire Lomas will become the first person to attempt to complete 26 miles using a bionic ReWalk suit.

Claire will line up at the start of the London Marathon alongside 36,000 participants but will be the only person attempting to walk the distance despite having lost the feeling in both legs after a freak horse riding accident.

The £43,000 device is the brainchild of Israeli entrepreneur Amit Goffer.

It is an alternative mobility solution to the wheelchair for individuals with severe walking impairments, enabling them to stand, walk, and ascend and descend stairs.

A shift in the wearer's balance, indicating their desire to take, for example, a step forward, triggers the suit to mimic the response that the joints would have if they were not paralysed.

The brace consists of a light wearable support suit, equipped with an array of motion sensors and motored joints, which respond to upper body movement accordingly through a sophisticated computer based control system.


Claire will commence the race on the 22 April, and depending on the weather, hopes to be able to complete 1.5 miles each day.

Claire says: "My challenge started a long time ago, when I first started fundraising to be able to purchase a ReWalk.

The support simply to do this has been amazing, from stars of the equestrian world stripping off to produce a naked calendar, to a generous donation from The Matt Hampson Foundation.

"When I first tested the ReWalk, I found the device very challenging because it required balance, which is very difficult with the loss of sensation and movement. It senses the pelvis tilt, and weight shift is essential, which is again hard when you have no feeling in your legs.

"I love a challenge, and there are so many people worse off than me, with less support and higher injuries, meaning that even breathing independently for them is impossible. A spinal injury can happen to anyone, at any time in a split second. Spinal Research is getting closer to finding treatments and a repair for paralysis and this is why I am walking the London Marathon for them."

To keep up-to-date with Claire's progress, please visit www.get-claire-walking.co.uk

You can also sponsor the Claire online at www.justgiving.com/Claire-Lomas

You can learn more about Spinal Research, the UK's leading charity funding medical research around the world to develop reliable treatments for paralysis caused by a broken back or neck, by visiting www.spinal-research.org.

Disability Robotic Aid: Cyberdyne's HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb)

At University of Tsukuba, Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor of Cybernics, unveils a robot suit entitled HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb), with a 60kg anti radiation jacket, in Tsukuba city, Ibaraki prefecture.

HAL robot suits, developed by Cyberdyne, detect signals from the brain to assist in the wearer's movement, and were developed for disabled and handicaped people.

Picture: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images

Functional Description
"When a person attempts to move, nerve signals are sent from the brain to the muscles via motoneuron, moving the musculoskeletal system as a consequence.

At this moment, very weak bio-signals can be detected on the surface of the skin. "HAL" catches these signals through a sensor attached on the skin of the wearer.

Based on the signals obtained, the power unit is controlled to move the joint unitedly with the wearer's muscle movement, enabling to support the wearer's daily activities.

This is what we call a 'voluntary control system' that provides movement interpreting the wearer's intention from the biosignals in advance of the actual movement.

Not only a 'voluntary control system' "HAL" has, but also a 'robotic autonomous control system' that provides human-like movement based on a robotic system which integrally work together with the 'autonomous control system'.

"HAL" is the world's first cyborg-type robot controlled by this unique Hybrid System."

Watch the video below to see it in action.

HyQ - IIT's Hydraulic Quadruped Robot - YouTube

This video shows HyQ in some serious action.

It's not quite an invasion, but in recent years we've seen a small parade of quadruped robots strutting out of labs around the world.

In the United States, Boston Dynamics has introduced its now-famous BigDog and, more recently, a bigger bot named AlphaDog.

Early this year, we wrote about FROG, a prototype built in China, and just a few weeks ago we described the SQ1 robot, a South Korean project.

Now it's time to unveil the latest addition to this pack: HyQ is a robot developed at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), in Genoa.

The machine, built by a team led by Professor Darwin Caldwell, is a hydraulic quadruped (Hence, hy-q) designed to perform highly dynamic tasks such as running and jumping.

Legged locomotion remains one of the biggest challenges in robotics, and the Italian team hopes that their robot can become a platform for research and collaboration among different groups a kind of open source BigDog.

Technics
HyQ's trunk is made of stainless steel and a folded, 3mm thick sheet of aluminum alloy. The 1 m (3.28 feet) long, 50 cm (1.64 feet) wide and 98 cm (3.21 feet) tall robot weighs 90 kg with the hydraulic power supply on board, and 70 kg with external hydraulics.

Hydraulic actuation offers high power density, high torque output and velocity. It also allows for high bandwidth torque control.

The downside is that the components are still rather bulky and not very energy efficient, but that is something the researchers at IIT's Department of Advanced Robotics intend to change.

They also want to make HyQ power-autonomous, endow it with a head with a built in stereo camera and a laser range finder and give it an arm with a gripper.

Robotic Assisted Limbs for Rent or Hire

Robotic Walking Aids: Tokyo

(Image: Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP / Getty Images)
Employees from the Japanese robotics company Cyberdyne don the company's robot suit "HAL" (Hybrid Assistive Limb) for a walk on a Tokyo street, to celebrate the mass production version of the suit.

Tsukuba University professor Yoshiyuki Sankai and Cyberdyne developed the robot suit to work in unison with the wearer, anticipating the user's motions and adjusting accordingly.

The suit could help with rehabilitation, physical training, heavy labour, and rescue support at disaster sites.