Tokyo Students Design a New Robotic Muscle Suit

angry tapir writes "Students at Tokyo's University of Science have developed a new version of their muscle suit, a wearable robotic suit that assists the muscles when carrying out strenuous tasks. The original version of the suit, which has been in production for several years, provides assistance to the arms and back but the new version provides assistance to the back only. That means it is lighter and more compact than the original model."

Pretty Impressive

[KazW]

The student demoing the suit could do 30kg (~66lb) on his own, and 50kg (~110lb) assisted by the suit, that's a 60% increase in lifting capacity... Maybe MJOLNIR armor isn't too far off... Dibs on serial # 117.

P.S. I mean something that looks more kickass than this: http://dvice.com/archives/2007/01/reallife_halo_suit_is_develope.php [dvice.com]

Video here

[angry tapir]

There's also a video of it in action here [idg.com.au]. (It wasn't up when I originally submitted the story.)

cheers,
A. Tapir.

Color me Unimpressed

[phantomcircuit]

That student really could not hold 110lbs of rice?

REALLY?

I'm calling shenanigans

Re:Huh? 15kg?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article does say "Such suits are being developed with an eye on assisting the physically challenged and workers carrying out physically demanding jobs."