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Turning everyone into an Ironman: How robotic exoskeleton technology is helping paralysed people walk again
- The technology integrates robotics with artificial intelligence to help people walk, rather than simply drag their limbs
- However, it remains unclear if it can ever break out of the medical industry and into day-to-day life
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For the first time in a dozen years, Duoduo could remember what it felt like to walk.
Her legs were strapped into large modern splints, and a fabric brace supported her waist. Surrounding her was what appeared to be the exoskeleton of robotic legs.
As Duoduo begins to move, her legs follow the familiar path so many of us take for granted.
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“I’ve been crying ever since,” she wrote on Weibo. “It is a feeling that I have not had in so long, something I almost forgot. I had almost given up walking, thinking I would spend my days in a wheelchair.”
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China’s exoskeleton may be key to helping paralysed patients walk again
China’s exoskeleton may be key to helping paralysed patients walk again
In 2009, when Duoduo was 17 years old, she was playing with some friends on the second floor of a housing complex. She lost her balance and fell onto a pile of sand, landing squarely on her bottom.
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She could not move or feel her legs.
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