At the International Robot Exhibition 2009, the Kobayashi Lab in the Faculty of Engineering at Tokyo University of Science presented a lightweight muscle suit. This is a wearable robot that is pneumatically driven to augment a person’s actions.
A muscle suit, apart from its joints, consists of artificial muscular augmenters made of rubber and nylon, which are compressed by air pressure. It works in a simple way: The air pressure, which is supplied directly to the muscle suit from a compressor, is adjusted by a computer to expand or contract the artificial muscles. The suit itself weighs only 8 kg, so it can be put on and taken off easily, without burdening the wearer.
This newly developed muscle suit uses carbon composite materials, so it’s very light, but nearly as strong as steel. Special care has been taken to make sure it’s safe and reliable for use by people.
The Kobayashi Lab aims to produce a practical version of this suit in 2010. To achieve this, it intends to develop a muscle suit that’s autonomously controlled instead of externally controlled. Such suits will help to improve working conditions and be useful in healthcare.
Related Links :
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http://kobalab.com/
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http://www.nikkan.co.jp/eve/irex/english/index.html (International Robot Exhibition 2009)
