No matter how far special effects have come in movies, even when watching Avatar and the Matrix, those bipedal exoskeletons that have a human sitting inside controlling them tend to walk with a rather awkward, drunken gait – but we’re glad to bring you news that it is not Hollywood, but at a science lab, where work has progressed far enough to produce a walking assistance robot from the Combustion and Design Lab at Nagoya Institute of Technology which will walk in a stable manner.
How does it achieve this? Well, the answer lies in the use of zig-zag flat rollers with a three-dimensional frame, sporting isosceles triangles that are connected in a zig-zag pattern. The triangular surfaces will function as the robot’s feet soles, letting the robot walk in a stable manner without looking as though you had too much to drink. It would be interesting to see how this development is carried over to the world of artificial prosthetics as well.