Cheap At $40,000: Phoenix Exoskeleton Gives Paraplegics Legs to Walk With 37
Fast Company highlights the cheap-for-the-price Phoenix exoskeleton, created by University of California Berkeley professor (and Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory director) Homayoon Kazerooni and a team of his former grad students at SuitX, a company Kazerooni founded in 2013. Set to sell for $40,000 when it goes on sale next month, the Phoenix sounds expensive -- except compared to the alternatives. For paraplegic patients, there are a handful of other powered exoskeletons, but they cost much more, and are engineered for more than the modest goals of the Phoenix, which allows only one thing: slow walking on level ground. That limited objective means that the rig is light (27 pounds), and relatively unobtrusive. Kazerooni says that he'd like the price to go down much further, too, noting that all the technology in a modern motorcyle can be had for the quarter of the price.
A slice: [The] only driving motors in Phoenix are at the hip joints. When the user hits a forward button on their crutches, their left hip swings forward. At this moment, the onboard computer signals the knee to become loose, flex, and clear the ground. As the foot hits, the knee joint stiffens again to support the leg. This computer-choreographed process repeats for the right leg.
As it happens, this hinged knee joint has another benefit. If the wearer hits something midstep, like a rock or a curb, a powered knee would blindly drive the leg forward anyway, likely leading to a fall. The hinge naturally absorbs such resistance and allows the wearer a chance to compensate.
Give it time (Score:3, Interesting)
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Oscar Pistorius is a long, long way off being a paraplegic. There's no comparison between a paraplegic wearing a powered exoskeleton, which is what we're talking about here, and an amputee that runs under his own muscle power on passive prostheses.
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Transhumanism is inevitable. Shortly after prosthetic performance exceeds human performance early adopters and those willing to push boundaries will opt-in to the technology. Acceptance is then just a few short generations away, all the while the state-of-the-art will continue to improve.
Can you imagine a future baseball league with a F1 style technology homologation committee to normalize the performance of the athletes' augmentations? I can't wait! Unfortunately I probably won't live another 80-130 ye
$40K still a lot for most folks (Score:3)
In this instance, it matters how large the target market is... [fscip.org] hmmm, larger than I would've guessed.
This 3D printing thing is really paying off. I hope to never need this technology's services, but it is really cool that there are folks working to improve it.
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Re:$40K still a lot for most folks (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a medical device, which means that for most people, the cost should be covered to some extent by insurance, like wheelchairs.
In the US, even if you had a good job with health insurance, there is a great chance your private insurance is gone by the time you're rolling around in the chair.
Now you're on Medicaid, and at the whim of the regulators as to whether you need something better than your chair. Experimental? Denied!
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The difference is what can be done about it.
If the market decides that it's not important for people to have this, then the only way to change that is for the people who need it to somehow become rich. If the regulators decide people shouldn't have this, then the voters can change that. And if you factor in the increased independence and productivity of the recipients, it might not cost that much.
Of course the way we do it now is we force employers to make accommodations. That's better than nothing, but st
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The difference is what can be done about it.
If the market decides that it's not important for people to have this, then the only way to change that is for the people who need it to somehow become rich. If the regulators decide people shouldn't have this, then the voters can change that. And if you factor in the increased independence and productivity of the recipients, it might not cost that much.
Of course the way we do it now is we force employers to make accommodations. That's better than nothing, but statistically the public is still paying; the burden is just randomly concentrated on a few unlucky employers.
Unless you're suggesting voting anarchist and/or libertarian, then voting can't do anything about the regulators. That's kind of the complaint about them, really: they are overall too well insulated from any people they harm for there to be the desirable feedback loop there. I've known quite a few people who left countries with single-payer systems because either they are their loved ones were considered by those running the heath care system to 'not really need' such things as a hip replacements or leuke
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In what sort of fantasy land are you buying your private insurance where they *don't* reserve the right to deny your procedure or equipment... not even on the basis of their perceived need, but just on whether they can recover the cost before you die?
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This is a medical device, which means that for most people, the cost should be covered to some extent by insurance, like wheelchairs.
Except here in the US of A, where health insurance companies are sticklers and won't pay for expensive good products if inexpensive terrible products are available. If you see an American in a low-weight cambered wheelchair without handlebars, you can bet that he paid for it himself, because his insurance wouldn't.
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The prime marked for this isn't for cripples, its for patents that will be useful down the line when exoskeletons mature a bit more. That and the fact it allows developed prototypes to be sold, and it will most likely be subsidized once it gets out of testing phase.
Even then, its roughly in the price segment where these devices will end up: They will cost the same as good fresh cars. 2nd gen of these might go down to 30.000, but they won't be cheap because they are rather complicated technology.
Re:$40K still a lot for most folks (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally, the cost would continue to come down as more of these are manufactured, and in some cases when the R & D costs are recouped. ($100 VCR movie.)
In this instance, it matters how large the target market is... [fscip.org] hmmm, larger than I would've guessed.
As Mr. Schrekli has taught us, increased production can also lead to increased prices. As long as there either is a monopoly, or more customers than the cheapest producer can handle, there will be gouging.
As for the price, $40k is not much. My hip implants cost around that much, not counting the surgery.
And in my youth, I had $20k manual wheelchairs (adjusted for inflation).
This is amazing, but (Score:1)
I would love something like that for my grampa...
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Military injuries and a longer life expectancy are leading us toward a population of ready customers.
The problem is still the pricing.
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Good and evil (Score:3)
My second thought however reveals my evil side:
Imagine this thing has wireless access. If so, it can be hacked.
Now picture some guy walking along a busy street with an exoskeleton, and me in a cafe nearby, seemingly playing "Frogger" on my laptop...
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There is no reason why this thing should have wireless access. :P A hardwired port for firmware updates should be it.
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But, but, but... Cloud! IoT! Wearables!
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Now picture some guy walking along a busy street with an exoskeleton, and me in a cafe nearby, seemingly playing "Frogger" on my laptop...
You want to reenact of the Wallace and Gromit "The Wrong Trousers" episode.