Tag: cyborg

Building Cyborgs

In 2006, DARPA studied cockroaches as a robotics platform. They soon learned that cockroaches have a mind of their own, and will ignore implanted directions (via electrical stimuli) after ~30min. this makes them unsuitable for spy missions, but it triggered interest in the neurobiology community as a new model organism.

Cockroaches have a simple body plan, and have their processing spread around the body. With some basic surgery, a cockroach can be turned into a robot by attaching the antenna to current, you can make a cockroach go left/right

The first workshop for building your own cyborg was this weekend. my specimen didn’t pass final QC because i didn’t secure the antenna cables securely enough, and the cockroach disconnected 😦

Bionic man

bionic man features 14 technologies currently being developed: a powered prosthetic leg that helps users achieve a more natural gait, a wireless brain-computer interface that lets people who are paralyzed control computer devices or robotic limbs using only their thoughts, and a micro-patch that delivers vaccines painlessly and doesn’t need refrigeration.

Superhuman hearing

written in the annoying dumbed-down jock style wired is infamous for, but still interesting:

We evolved in a world where we needed to hear lions, but today it makes sense for our senses to talk directly to our brain. It would also give us the ability to hear outside of our normal 20-20Khz spectrum, giving us the ability to hear what bats or dolphins hear.

Soft exoskeletons

I wonder whether the space or disability applications will come on line first.

2013-05-24: Warrior Web

The Army is nearing completion of a five-month series of tests to evaluate multiple Warrior Web prototype devices. The testing evaluates how each prototype incorporates different technologies and approaches to reduce forces on the body, decrease fatigue, stabilize joints and help Soldiers to maintain a natural gait under a heavy load. The testing uses a multi-camera motion-capture system to determine any changes in gait or balance, a cardio-pulmonary exercise testing device to measure oxygen consumption and a variety of sensors to collect force, acceleration and muscle activity data.

2015-07-20: Harvard Soft Exosuits

compared to a traditional exoskeleton, these systems have several advantages, the wearer’s joints are unconstrained by external rigid structures, and the worn part of the suit is extremely light.

2016-09-25: Exoskeleton to get average soldiers to run 24km/h

2018-07-06: Powered Clothing

Seismic is combining clothing and robotics into what they call Powered Clothing. They aim to get exosuits into stores by the end of 2018 in the US, Japan and the UK. The suit’s ‘electric muscles’, powered by tiny motors, contract and mimic human muscle. These electric muscles are part of the clothing around the joints of the body and attached via grips in the clothing. The grips act like tendons in the human body. A computer and sensors tracking body movements are also integrated into the suit; software tells the muscles in the clothing when to activate. The hard technology components such as motors, batteries and control boards are incorporated into hexagonal low-profile pods, designed for maximum comfort.

Better than steroids

The glove seemed to nearly erase his muscle fatigue; after multiple rounds, cooling allowed him to do just as many pull-ups as he did the first time around. Then in the next 6 weeks he went from doing 180 pull-ups total to over 620, an unprecedented rate of physical performance improvement.

Paralyzed Marathon

Dispatches from our nonlinear future.

A paralyzed British woman made history on Tuesday, when she became the first person to ever complete a marathon while wearing a bionic suit. Claire Lomas finished the race 16 days after it began, with the help of the ReWalk exoskeleton developed by Amit Goffer.