Rex, the robotic exoskeleton, aims to make wheelchairs obsolete
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 15th 2010 2:58AM
posted July 15th 2010 2:58AM
[Thanks, Kurt and Simon]
World First Robotic Legs Provide NEW Option for Wheelchair Users
When Hayden Allen was spinal cord injured five years ago he became a full time wheelchair user and doctors told him he'd never walk again. Today a revolutionary product developed by Auckland-based company Rex Bionics has enabled Hayden to walk again.
Hayden has been one of the first people in the world to use Rex, the Robotic Exoskeleton, which is most easily described as a pair of robotic legs that supports and assists a person who usually uses a wheelchair, enabling the person to stand, walk and go up and down steps and slopes.
"I'll never forget what it was like to see my feet walking under me the first time I used Rex," says Hayden, who is 6'4" (193cm) tall when standing. "People say to me, 'look up when you're walking' but I just can't stop staring down at my feet moving."
Being up out of his chair and on his feet again allows Hayden many more options on a day to day basis, increasing opportunities for employment and recreational activities by providing access for him independently to go places previously inaccessible to him. For example - up stairs!
Rex users self-transfer from their wheelchair into Rex, strap themselves in and control their movements using a joystick and control pad. REX is powered by a lightweight, long life rechargeable battery. Rex is the brainchild of two childhood friends, Richard Little and Robert Irving – co-founders of Rex Bionics. "Both of our mothers are in wheelchairs so we are aware of some of the obstacles and access issues faced by many wheelchair users," says Richard.
Robert's Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis seven years ago was the catalyst for these men to put their engineering skills to use to develop a practical, standing and walking alternative to wheel chairs.
The founders are quick to point out that Rex is not a replacement for a wheelchair, but a complement that offers a range of options not currently available anywhere else in the world. It is potentially suitable for manual wheelchair users who can self-transfer and operate hand controls.
Dr Richard Roxburgh, Auckland neurologist and Medical Adviser to the Muscular Dystrophy Association says, "For many of my patients Rex represents the first time they've been able to stand up and walk for years. There are obvious immediate benefits in terms of mobility, improved social interaction and self-image. There are also likely to be major long term health and quality of life benefits through reducing the complications of being in a wheelchair all the time. I think that this will also enable people to stay well longer; this means that those who have conditions where disease modifying treatments are coming over the next five to ten years, will be in better shape when those treatments finally arrive."
Each Rex is built onsite at the Rex Bionics' Auckland plant. It has been designed to be practical, lightweight, portable, safe and simple to use and sufficiently powered for a typical day of use. Potential customers must complete a medical appraisal including checks with their own physician to ensure their general health and suitability before they can begin the process of fitting and training. This process typically takes around two weeks with Rex Bionics' team of technicians, based at the Rex Centre in Auckland.
Rex has undergone thorough testing during its seven year development including engineering validation and clinical trials, with the approval of the New Zealand Ethics Committee, in conjunction with disability and rehabilitation advisors.
Rex is expected to cost about US$150,000. The decision to purchase Rex will be a very individual assessment of what Rex allows you to do. The benefits can be social, for the work place, for home and health related.
Rex will soon be available for purchase in New Zealand, where the price will be a bit lower since it will be easier to supply and support close to the company's home base on Auckland's North Shore.
CEO of Rex Bionics, Jenny Morel, says they expect to conclude internal testing of Rex shortly and will then have a preliminary release in Auckland to allow the company to track what happens when people take Rex home. Sales are expected to commence in New Zealand by the end of 2010 and elsewhere in the world by the middle of 2011.
Rex has been developed with the support of TechNZ and venture capital company, No 8 Ventures.
This looks just almost like the japanese robo exoskeleton HAL sans top portion
@xconan almost like? It's exactly like the early prototype!
Cute guy! :)
@pavelgr it's the accent isn't it?
@bbqbspareribs I was talking about the photo. I haven't watched the video. But I value and trust your opinion! :)
'Their the wrong trousers Gromit, the wrong trousers!'
New Zealand represent! I saw this on the news...
I'm personally holding out for the flames paint job edition. Everyone knows flames make stuff look faster!
"New Zealand isn't exactly known for being a hotbed of tech innovation" Ouch! Way to insult NZ, man!
NZ also invented the electric petrol pump, electric shears, the first to fly - Richard Pearse and the first to get plastic to conduct electricity (Nobel Prize for that one... lead to your iPads).
Oh, and the Martin jetpack which most hollywood stars will own soon.
I could see it performing perfect moonwalks.
Could you please make a similar battle suite for non-disable people? Thanks
work in progress but i get the feeling soon,,,,people in these things well the next ,next gen which is not too long in tech advance terms does,it will and look dangerous ,even more if you couple it wiht some type of skynet cpu ,speed the legs up 100times,stick a heavy machine gun ,nade launcher(like the korean patrol robot)the killing power will be awesome,hell you will have your first gen of voltron/macross/power loader.
As someone who's actually in a wheelchair (although not paraplegic), I don't have any desire to use this in its present form. As others have mentioned, it's much too slow. I see this as another, potentially more useful, form of leg brace, which many disabled people such as myself already wear. Secondly, the price tag on this is going to have to come down significantly. Health care "reform" or not, there's no insurance company (including Medicare) in the United States that will pay for this thing at $150,000 per device. Even if the inventors of this device improve the speed I'm not sure what the benefit is for disabled people. As others have written, it's not going to help a disabled individual as much as their daily exercise program. I guess it could help people reach things on a higher shelf because they're standing rather than sitting but because of the size/weight of this device an individual using it probably couldn't sit in a regular chair at a restaurant without crushing the chair and ending up on the floor.
I also see a potential for a societal down side with this device. In the 1920s and 1930s the United States quite openly tried, through the use of sterilization, from propagating. In 1939 Germany carried this a step further. In one sense I have a fear that devices like this are trying to take the world down the same sort of path and trying to eliminate the wheelchair. But then again, it's not like anyone who uses this exoskeletion isn't going to be stared at endlessly and defined as "not normal" and "lesser" anyway. It's good when society is forced to deal with disabled individuals and the fact that disability is the only minority community anyone can become a member of in a split second.
This is potentially a good first step (no pun intended). I might be interested when it's small and light enough for me to wear under my clothes and the technology is advanced enough so it doesn't need a joystick to operate, much like my leg braces help me when I need to do something that requires a short bit of standing now.
@GMUHistorian
I agree.
they need to reduce its size/weight/cost.
It needs t be discreet enough to make you not look like a robot monster.
dump the joysticks and go with a segway style automatic balance and direction.
The main problem will be the energy source.
@GMUHistorian Lesser?!? You'd have robotic exoskeletal legs! You'd clearly be superior to the rest of us. Who needs weak, pathetic fleshy legs when you have robot legs?
Murphy??
Oh, sure, good move, I bet "quite a lot more" than 0.00001% of all the handicap people on the planet will be able to afford it.
That`s the way to introduce new technology and do the world some good!
[/sarcasm end]
@substance90
well , it's new , and clearly not ready for the masses.But its a good start.And they will need money to bring it forwards.
As someone who spent 10 years in a wheelchair and is now able to walk with walking sticks - thanks to modern medicine and surgery - this type of technology brings a tear to my eye. Awesome. We live in amazing times.
+1 for calling it Metal Gear Rex
cool, it would mean people who can't walk on their own can go up stairs without a ramp, which would be great.
haters gonna hate
"Yeah. I'm thinking of getting metal legs. It's a risky operation, but it'll be worth it."
Battery life?
Hi there - Rex has a custom-made rechargeable battery designed for safety, long life and low weight. A full charge will typically run for two hours of active use. To extend time in use a new fully-charged Rex battery can also easily be swapped over.
Wonder if it does pelvic thrusts.
This is good. Fifty years from now, it would be great if these things were pencil-thin, had carabiner strength, could slip under your jeans, and could support a fully paralyzed person. The medical possibilities this could unlock is profound.
He better be careful drinking that beer at the BBQ .... don't want to get pulled over for a RUI (Rexing Under Influence)
BRB, throwing self down stairs.
not known for innovation? They also came out with the first safe and fully approved by the FAA JETPACK in new zealand. Jetpacks and robot legs? I'd say New Zealand is the only true innovation we're seeing right now!
Perhaps a step in the right direction, but clumsy and slow. I know a couple of paraplegics, and they're actually quite adept at getting from A-to-B on an even surface.
Perhaps a less ambitious, but more practical, device, would be one built into a standard wheelchair, which would harness and support their legs, and place them in a standing position. This would allow them to stand up at appropriate times, like at a presentation, or a wedding. Or a bar or social event.
@mezzb
You made me laugh thinkings about the last two weekends. I'm in a chair, and went to a baseball game on the 4th of July when asked to stand for the national anthem, of course I didn't, but my fiance looked down at me, shook her head, and said "shameful, just shameful" jokingly, lol.....she did the same thing at a wedding the next weekend....I would hit her if I didn't love her.... and if I knew she couldn't knock me out of my chair lol.
The iBot got discontinued because few people could afford the $30k asking price. At $150k I can't imagine doing any better.
I assume the headline is just creative writing, because these things (slow or not) aren't exactly a replacement for wheelchair use for someone with advanced rheumatoid arthritis, for example.
Unfortunately, we'll need wheelchairs for a long time yet. Having robo-legs, however, will be a welcome addition to the pool of available options!
Too slow, it would be good if it was fast and cheaper, I am not disabled, but i would feel better on a segway-thing with a chair or a wheelchair where i can be faster than a person than being 10 times slower than a walking person
I just imagine myself crossing the street with that thing... ouch
Engadget, I know you're smart and mean no disrespect, but your headline seems like it could be a little offensive to some. There are many people bound to wheelchairs who actually would never would be able to walk. Take cerebral palsy for example.
I was thinking about getting metal legs, its a risky operation. But it'll be worth it.
Hahah i just think of Jp in grandmas boy when i see this article
Nice, but you know what wheels don't do? Suffer software glitches or run out of electrical power.
Hints at good things to come. While its therapeutic benefits seem pretty undeniable, as many have already commented, it is waaaay too slow. It's just a matter of time before either this company, or someone else makes a decent exoskeleton that moves at a practical pace.
So I guess Jake Skully didn't need to go through all of that crap on Pandora after all?
I'd buy that for a dollar!
well there going to have to get it so they can move faster than that, my friend who cant walk said they would only have 1 if they move faster than in the video
may as well stick to the chair till then
For a 150,000 ill take a 1,000 and have the most plushed out wheelchair.
@flyfebthas you'd probably get a pretty crappy wheelchair for 1,000
[Insert arbitrary WOOOO GO NEW ZEALAND!!]
Seriously, we make cool shit. :)
"New Zealand isn't exactly known for being a hotbed of tech innovation..."
# New Zealand entrepreneur and daredevil AJ Hackett opened the world's first commercial bungy site in 1988. In June 1987 AJ bungy jumped illegally from the Eiffel Tower. AJ Hackett now lives in Paris.
# New Zealand brothers Davis and Andrew Akers created the world's first Zorb, a unique adventure activity involving a giant plastic ball, a slope and speeds of up to 50 kilometres per hour.
# New Zealand farmer William Hamilton developed the world's first propellerless jet boat in 1953. He went on to invent the hay lift, an advanced air compressor, a machine to smooth ice on skating ponds and the water sprinkler amongst other things.
# New Zealand scientist Baron Ernest Rutherford was the first in the world to split the atom in 1919. He was awarded a Nobel Prize for his efforts in radioactivity.
# New Zealand referee William Atack was the world's first to use a whistle to stop a game of sport in 1884.
# New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward invented among other things, eggbeaters, burglar proof windows and the world’s first spiral hair pin.
# New Zealand running great, Arthur Lydiard invented jogging, a training technique that saw his two protégés Peter Snell and Murray Halberg win gold medals on the same day at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
# New Zealand inventor, Alan Gibbs, invented the world's first high speed sports amphibian, the Aquada.
# A computer-controlled surf reef designed by a New Zealand company has been built in the United States, fuelling dreams of turning surfing into an international stadium sport. Dr Black - a surfer, oceanographer and former Waikato University professor - led the team who designed the
Versareef, which can be moulded into different shapes by computer controls.
# In New Zealand you can find an artificial surfing reef at the surf town of Mount Maunganui.
# In Wellington a proposed artificial reef at Lyall Bay is said to make Wellington a top surfing spot, by boosting good surfing days from 27 to between 118 and 142 each year.
* Godfrey Bowen - developer of an improved sheep-shearing technique
* John Britten - designer of the Britten motorcycle
* Morton W. Coutts - invented the revolutionary continuous fermentation method of brewing
* Bill Gallagher - developer of the electric fence and founder of Gallagher Group Limited
* Peter Lynn - leading kitemaker, aeronautical theoritician and inventor of the tipping blade portable sawmill.
* Colin Murdoch - inventor of the disposable syringe
* Richard Pearse - outstanding early aviator/inventor - also the first man to fly (before the Wright Brothers)
* Alan Pritchard - pioneer of aerial topdressing
Pretty sure they're the wrong trousers, Gromit.
Wow, now that is truly amazing. What a discovery
www.privacy-tools.se.tc
Is it more practical in any way to a wheel chair? I'd say it's a lot easier to carry stuff in a wheel chair. Still easier to go up ramps than walk up stairs on this thing, if it can even do that, and certainly a lot safer.
That is so cool
http://www.patscowindshieldrepair.com