Coming Soon: Japanese Cyborg Farmers
	Posted 11 Jan 2008 at 20:51 UTC by steve

Researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have developed an exoskeleton for farmers. The idea is to assist the aging Japanese farmers in their daily routine by giving them greater strength to complete their work, much of which is manual labor. The robotic suit relies on ultrasonic motors along with various sensors and wireless networking gear. More details about the suit can be found in a recent Robots-Dreams article. The mass-produced version of the suit is expected to weigh in at 8 kilograms and cost about 200,000 yen. Photos and diagrams of the technology can be found in a document (PDF format, Japanese language) released by the University. More photos of the exoskeleton can be found in the Mainichi Daily News story and Sankie MSN story about the power suit.

nice idea, posted 11 Jan 2008 at 22:49 UTC by IceMetal » (Journeyer)

is a nice invention, the price is good for $2,000 USD, but how they can manage to make it weight about 20LBS, with 8 motors, and batteries, I was looking at the picture and it looks like is connected to a bunch of heavy gauge wires, I can see it working but prob needs to be run with wires, it didnt explain much in the article,

military exoskeletons and cyborg warfare, posted 14 Jan 2008 at 19:49 UTC by The Swirling Brain » (Master)

I saw some show on the military or science channel where they were developing something similar for the US Army. Some guy had one of these exoskeletons on and was loading boxes of ammo that weigh around 100 lbs each and was moving them swiftly with just one hand. I can see this thing being useful for us regular folk too. I agree that $2k sounds like a great starting price point. We could all become human fork lifts! Wouldn't it be cool for changing tires? You just lift up the car with one arm, use the air ratchet attachment on the other arm, yank the tire and replace it, then lower the car. Gone in 60 seconds! Hopefully the criminals won't get a hold of this tech! Your car stripped and gone in 60 seconds! Gang warfare takes on a whole new meaning! Yikes!

Now me waits for the horror flicks based on this tech. Oh wait, yeah they already used it in Aliens, that's right!

In independence day, all the aliens sort of had a bio exoskeleton suit for every one of the troops! Will our military eventually have that where all troops are equipped with an exoskeleton?

Cool, Slashdot links to Robots.net!, posted 15 Jan 2008 at 00:01 UTC by The Swirling Brain » (Master)

Here ya go:

Coming Soon — Cyborg Farmers

$2k Bike Racing Man, posted 15 Jan 2008 at 04:00 UTC by MDude » (Journeyer)

Why bother using a car when you could use a foldable bike with an "super extra high gear for cyborgs" which lets you go at least fast enough for town driving, if not as fast as a regular motorbike, and which can be worn as a backback when not being ridden. Not for taking the kids to soccer practice, I guess, but for that you could use a pedal powered car.