Hyundai didn't roll out their new product - they walked it out. The H-MEX Hyundai Medical Exoskeleton is just the first of a series of robotic products for people to wear, rather than keep in their garages.
(Hyundai Motor’s medical exoskeleton H-MEX video)
Hyun said the H-MEX is designed for people with lower spinal cord injuries, and will give them the ability to sit down, stand up, move, turn around and even walk up or down stairs. The device calculates a person's walking pace, the length of their stride, and torso tilting angle to provide "individually tailored gait pattern adjustment," Hyundai explained in a news release.
Along with the H-MEX, Hyundai during its presser described two other wearable robots it has in the works: HUMA (which stands for Hyundai Universal Medical Assist) and H-WEX (Hyundai Waist Exoskeleton). The former was designed for people with "severely limited mobility," like elderly individuals, while the latter provides upper body and hip support for manual laborers.
Exoskeletons were first conceived by sf writers as a way to do work in heavy gravity situations; take a look at this quote from John W. Campbell's 1938 short story The Brain Pirates:
"We have those new suits rigged with atomic-powered lifting gadgets, so that'll protect us from the weight, if what our instruments say about that world's true..."
"I'll go check up on those suits and make some adjustments. I hadn't thought they'd have to handle any double-gravity worlds."
"... may I suggest that you make sure you don't get those drive-units in the suits backward? I'd hate to have them sit on me as well as a doubled gravity..."
(Read more about Campbell's Atomic-Powered Lifting Suits)
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