It was a few years ago when Honda announced it would be releasing a set of robotic walking and lifting exoskeletons, but over the years, the company has certainly improved its personal walkers and has announced they have started to lease a total of 100 units of its Walking Assist Devices to hospitals in Japan.
The Walking Assist Device is being leased out in order to help provide rehabilitation and physical therapy for patients that require such assistance, as well as to monitor its user and to see if it’s a device that can be used practically. Honda’s Walking Assist Device borrows some of its ASIMO’s humanoid robot technology by including cooperative control technology. This technology activates motors based on information obtained from the hip angle sensors in order to improve the person’s symmetry of timing when walking.
Honda’s Walking Assist Device weighs a total of 2.6kg, or 5.7lbs, and can be worn with belts to make it less of a burden to the wearer as well as being usable to people of varying body sizes. A total of seven hospitals have used the Walking Assist Device and Honda hopes its leasing on 100 units to additional hospitals will help in gaining more opinion and feedback from real-world users.