What if you could run as easily as walking?:Bionic exoskeletons

Run on hard surfaces without knee or hip damage

Hugh Herr is a double amputee, an MIT professor and the founder of his own company, iWalk, and recognized as one of the leading innovators in the area of bionics.  He was featured in Forbes magazine in December of 2009 for building and marketing the most advanced prosthetic foot in the world.  His earlier prosthetic invention, the Rheo Knee, was licensed and commercially launched in 2004 and currently has 20% market share.

Herr talks talks about the future
of bionics and the currently available technologies in the video below.  These included exobionics (worn outside the body as an exoskeleton), including the one he recently invented and patented for able-bodied persons to allow them to run on hard surfaces without damaging their knees and hips. This trend is not lost on sports giant Nike, which has already designed its own branded prosthetic, perhaps to establish its place early in the likely newly emerging bionic and sports prostheses niche markets.

Nike's branded prosthetic leg

He also showcases another bionic exoskeleton in the video, one that corrects the drop-footed gait that often results from stoke- again not for amputees. His own leg will be soon be linked to his nervous system to allow him not only to walk on the beach, but to feel the sand through his bionic limbs.

Testing the new exoskeleton prototype in the lab 

According to a post dated May 2011 by Frank Moss, Director of MIT's Media Lab through 2011, Herr is also applying what they have learned developing designs for robotic prostheses for amputees to building ultra-lightweight “exoskeletons” that everyone could wear.

The goal is to allow a person to run with the same level of metabolic expenditure as walking. This could really change the world of human mobility. Think about “exo-running lanes” on streets and highways, and new “exo-sports.”

The paper released on this research describes the mechanism in the leg as "the spring is intended to store energy at heel-strike which is then released when the heel  leaves the ground, reducing the effort required by the quadriceps to exert this energy, thereby reducing the metabolic cost of running."

Herr with Aimee Mullins

The idea is to allow people to move quickly with minimal effort.“They won’t need parking lots,” says Dr Herr. “People can run straight into their offices, remove their mobility platform, as if they were undressing, and then hang it right on their coat rack.” 

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Herr: A view into the wild future of bionics