Making Huge Strides for Mobility

This exoskeleton, developed by UC Berkeley professor Homayoon Kazerooni and his team, helps people suffering from spinal cord injuries to walk again. “Many paraplegics are not in a situation to afford a $100,000 device, and insurance companies don’t pay for these devices,” Kazerooni said. “Our job as engineers is to make something people can use.” To make his exoskeleton affordable, he used the simplest possible technology: a computer and batteries in a backpack, actuators at the hips, and a pair of crutches with buttons that activate an exoskeleton that fits around the legs. The crutches provide stability, an important consideration for paraplegics navigating streets and sidewalks. “The key is independence for these people,” he said. “I want them to get up in the morning and go to work, go to the bathroom, stand at a bar and have a beer.” When soccer’s World Cup — the most-watched sports event on Earth — kicks off June 12, Berkeley professor Homayoon Kazerooni and his research assistants won’t be watching the players. They’ll be staring at the person with wires taped to his skull. An estimated 1 billion people are expected to see a bravura performance: a paraplegic teenager in a robotic suit kicking a soccer ball. Kazerooni will be comparing the Brazilian’s performance to the one videotaped on a UC-Berkeley playing field last week, when Steve Sanchez and Daniel Fukuchi, two paraplegic men in their 20s, played a brief but memorable pickup game with a videographer’s 4-year-old son. In contrast to the complex array of sensors, gyroscopes and hydraulics worn in Brazil, the Berkeley test pilots wore a robotic system called an exoskeleton that costs about $20,000, weighs just 22 pounds, and can be worn under clothing. With 2 million paraplegics in the U.S., Kazerooni’s goal was to use state-of-the-art robotics to give as many people as possible the chance to walk again — and do it quickly. exoskeleton Credit: Elena Zhukova Homayoon Kazerooni's engineering lab is developing exoskeletons that are lightweight enough for regular use. “Many paraplegics are not in a situation to afford a $100,000 device, and insurance companies don’t pay for these devices,” Kazerooni said. “Our job as engineers is to make something people can use.” In the past decade, scientists have adopted a wide range of approaches to something that once would have been called a miracle. The World Cup exoskeleton controller developed by Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis and Gordon Cheng of the Technical University in Munich, Germany, is at the most high-tech end of the spectrum. The device, which required more than six months of virtual reality training to operate, transmits electrical impulses from the user’s brain using electrodes in a rubber cap to a robotic exoskeleton. While TV sports commentators are bandying about the claim that the brain-controlled exoskeleton will make wheelchairs obsolete, research is still in an early stage, said Sanjay Joshi, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, who contributed crucial know-how to the project. While the technology holds promise, particularly for quadriplegics, Cheng estimates that it could take 10 to 20 years before a brain-activated exoskeleton is available.