Soft pneumatic exoskeleton trades sci-fi for wearability

We love a good anime-inspired mechanical exoskeleton just as much as the next person, but most social contexts don't exactly smile upon lazy nerds doing their best impression of an AT-ST walker. That's why we're rather intrigued by this pneumatic and highly wearable soft exoskeleton put together by some folks at the University of Michigan. The suit is a hybrid system with electronics responsible for pumping the leg around, and a roboticist from the Science University of Tokyo is working on a version for the upper extremities.

[Via MAKE]

[Br0 @ Apr 11th 2008 1:34AM]

This, is freaking amazing, and so god damn simple! Argh, do want.

[John @ Apr 11th 2008 1:35AM]

GO BLUE

[spaceb @ Apr 11th 2008 1:42AM]

It's great for people who can't dance. Just plug in the ipod, press play and you're good to go.

[ethana2 @ Apr 11th 2008 2:07AM]

Hold the phone, Jobs just randomly decided that he didn't like exoskeletons.

So much for that.

[gabe @ Apr 11th 2008 1:46AM]

slap an armani exchange logo on that - and i bet all the asians will buy it.

[Lupo @ Apr 11th 2008 2:40AM]

armani? if your to insult the forward-thinking style emerging from china and japan at least you could be accurate; it needs a BAPE logo

[phanbouy @ Apr 11th 2008 1:59AM]

exoskeletal judgment at the railroad tonight!!!

ahem. that was some mars volta.

/obscure

[Skullpanda @ Apr 11th 2008 3:13AM]

Not only are those the wrong lyrics, The Mars Volta is hardly obscure. :P

[letstakeawalk @ Apr 11th 2008 2:01AM]

This is the kind of gear we're going to need to stop those defective army robots...

[Isak? @ Apr 11th 2008 4:48AM]

No man, no. Nothing can stop the army of robots. Everytime I read any post on here even mildly related to robots I hope for a good "we are all so dead" joke. Come on engadget, you're dropping the ball here.

Not even a "Spam in a soft can" joke or anything.

[skyward03 @ Apr 11th 2008 2:02AM]

wow.. it only work on one leg. Great it can solve the problem of some people that have two left feet.

[ethana2 @ Apr 11th 2008 2:08AM]

Great, now they have three.

[ethana2 @ Apr 11th 2008 2:09AM]

I can coordinate my limbs, thank you. I just need help processing information.

[linuxamp @ Apr 11th 2008 2:31AM]

I was just watching some old SeaQuest DSV videos and laughed at how they added all sorts of wires and circuits to the outside of gloves etc. to make them look high tech and futuristic. Funny thing is that the more futuristic we get, the less wires we see.

[Wwhat @ Apr 11th 2008 12:08PM]

If there's any wire sticking out of anything the entire police/security/etcetera freaks out and breaks down then run around flapping their hands, then when they popped some pills and regained speech call the media and close down the country.
Subsequently they avoid looking at themselves and proceed to blame others.

[highjumpman @ Apr 11th 2008 2:33AM]

I just hope it doesn't need as much computing power as the suit in Crysis! Just kidding...

[Andrew @ Apr 11th 2008 3:11AM]

So who's working on the armor plating and the plasma cannon?

[Wwhat @ Apr 11th 2008 9:49AM]

If they want to use this at the next olympics they better be quick about it.

[Brian @ Apr 11th 2008 2:15PM]

Spriggan, anyone?