Robot Could Help Disabled to 'Walk'
Published: Jun 24, 2007
A two-legged robot that can enable the elderly and the disabled to walk has been created by a joint research group of Japan’s Waseda University and Fukuoka-based robot company TMSK (pronounced TAE-MOO-ZAK).
The robot, dubbed “WL -16R3,” is four feet tall and weighs about 150 pounds. It can walk on flat roads on its two legs while a human rides on top and steers.
Kentaro Hottori, one of the research staff at the Waseda University says, “This robot can walk only on a flat road for now. But we hope it will be able to help physically handicapped people to move around in the future.”
The creators are yet to launch the WL-16R3 commercially due to safety concerns about its carrying capacity of only 110 pounds.
Source: Reuters
