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Comment by AndrewOMartin | Hacker News Reader

I have a friend who would basically get his life back if he could use something like this to allow him to walk normally.

I'm all for superhuman enhancements, and I know that defence leads research in many areas, but I can't help feeling a bit disappointed that my friend will likely never have access to anything like this.

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My startup is building exoskeleton to help the disabled walk. Our aim is to make a much cheaper exoskeleton ($10k). But we are starting by building exoskeletons for children. Check out trexorobotics.com

Good luck with such a meaningful problem. I can only imagine what help in this space would mean for these children and their parents.

I wouldn't give up on it. I remember a few years ago the stories of people 3d printing prosthetic hands for $50...where the cost had previously been $30k+. I imagine that some ingenuity and determination could do the same here.

https://3dprint.com/2438/50-prosthetic-3d-printed-hand/ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244608

Do you think affordability will be a blocker?

I'd expect such assistive devices to hit the medical market pretty much instantly once they are practical in terms of things like weight, cost and run time.

I wonder how many parts could be 3D printed in a civilian/mass-market version to help with price? Obviously the army doesn't want to compromise anywhere in terms of durability considering the conditions they're working in.

3D printing doesn't help much to reduce prices for mass market manufacturing. And the materials that can be used in most 3D printers still aren't strong enough for applications like this. Milling, casting, and forging can generally produce stronger, lighter parts.

One problem is that you have to make sure that this device tries to rotate your knee around the same axis as your knee does, probably more so when used on people who already have weaker knees.

Because of that, I expect that fitting this to a body is a lengthy and, hence, fairly costly affair.

Telescopic arms and IR sensors feeding to the AI could potentially center the joins within a few steps without any human intervention.

I think that's the idea behind http://www.cybathlon.ethz.ch/the-disciplines/powered-exoskel...

It's really heartening to see what's becoming possible for those with disabilities, but as other commenters say, the next challenge is making good solutions available.

A vaguely similar device is in testing at Lowes.

https://newsroom.lowes.com/fresh-thinking/new-suit-empowerin...

I didn't see any price. I give up, why won't you eventually be able to buy one? With an aging society, I'd bet someone makes a cheaper commercial one.

This is coming. It's more likely to get to the medical help first, though.

A 100 lb nurse needs a bit of assist to move a 300 lb patient out of bed.

Back injuries are terribly common among nurses and orderlies. Due to the increasing number of obese and immobile patients, hospitals are starting to use small cranes to lift them out of bed.

I can see it getting a lot of use in physical therapy before making it to consumers.

Making it affordable is hard but there are already companies out there that are designing the same thing for the medical device market.

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