New robo-suit can help you run longer without getting tired

WASHINGTON: Once confined to comic books, exosuits that enhance a wearer’s physical abilities has taken step forward as researchers unveiled a pair of robotic shorts that assist in walking and running.


The entire get-up, which includes a battery that straps around the waist and a motor on the lower back that connects to pull-cables, weighs just five kilograms and detects its wearer’s gait to appropriately adjust its output.

Walking and running are very different activities from a biomechanical viewpoint, and previous devices had focused on boosting one or the other, but not both, said co-author Conor Walsh from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

“So I think it’s a step towards these devices not only helping with a single activity, but devices that eventually can help people in their everyday lives, in many different ways across many different activities,” he said.

The breakthrough required developing a control algorithm that used three sensors to detect with 99% accuracy what the wearer was doing and respond accordingly.

In a paper published in the journal Science, the team from Harvard University and the University of Nebraska Omaha wrote that the suit reduces the average energy cost of walking by 9.3% and running by 4.0%.

The exosuit was put through its paces in a variety of environments, from the treadmill to the running track to hiking up a hill, and Walsh said its battery will last for up to 10 kmof walking and jogging.

It could find use in outdoor activities, such as helping a soldier carry heavier rucksacks for longer distances, allowing them to be less fatigued when they get to their end destination, it said.