HAL robot suit almost summits with quadriplegic man in tow

In another instance of overcoming physical limitations via the help of robotics, a 43-year old Japanese man has (almost) fulfilled his dream of climbing the 13,741-foot Breithorn mountain in Switzerland. Seiji Uchida, who has been paralyzed from the neck down for over two decades, was able to get within 500 yards of the mountaintop with the help of a HAL (hybrid assistive limb) suit worn by his pal Takeshi Matsumoto. We reported that this escapade was in the works a few months back, and thanks to the (completely legal) strength enhancing device developed by Tsukuba University engineering professor Yoshiyuki Sankai, Uchida enjoyed a first-class piggyback ride up the Klein Matterhorn. Sankai's HAL has been in development for 14 years, and has been dubbed a product of his startup company, Cyberdyne (hasn't this name been trademarked by now?). According to Cyberdyne, the HAL allows someone who can normally lift 220 pounds on a leg press to hoist 396 pounds, an impressive 80% increase. Sankai mentioned the HAL could perform under less-than-ideal weather situations including snow, and that his main goal was to use this Alpine climb to build an even better HAL to assist disabled individuals in achieving their dreams -- quite an uplifting objective, eh?

[Cammy @ Aug 8th 2006 11:06PM]

wow thats pretty amazing!
wonder how quickly and how agile you can move in one of these?

[mat @ Aug 8th 2006 11:18PM]

HAL? Cyberdyne..a company with the best of intention....a robotics company developing cyborg systems. Anyone else even slightly concerned about recursion in 'fictional' time travel narratives....

Best break out of this asylum and find me a bunker.....

[rene @ Aug 8th 2006 11:25PM]

if the guy's quadruplegic, shouldn't he be paralyzed from the neck down? how come he can grip those handlebars?

[wxrman @ Aug 8th 2006 11:45PM]

paralyzed from the neck down?

... but seems to be sitting upright and gripping some kind of handlebars.

hmmm..

Are we sure this isn't some Anime-style "Heavy Metal" movie in the works?

[Kowalski @ Aug 8th 2006 11:55PM]

almost got to the summit? thats going to make a fucking rubbish story.

"so, bob how was your everest trip?"
"Well...... we ALMOST made it. 500 yards away."
"umm.... thats cool"

[K Kniepkamp @ Aug 9th 2006 12:19AM]

I "almost" had sex with Angelina Jolie...

[John Conner @ Aug 9th 2006 12:22AM]

err that guy beat me too it!!

i wanted to make cyberdyne a real company!!

but technically, the terminator cyberdyne is spelled cyber-dyne systems and a computer company
although they eventually started making cyborgs such as the t-100 and t-1000 and the t-1 (not internet) in the movie you se a lame tank like robot called the t-1 lets just hope these people stick to helping disabled people and not making terminators a virus which the world thinks is a program to blow up the world called skynet

btw the mall scene was filmed at my mall in northridge where i live and the "wash" the open sewer thing where the truck falls into On Plummer street runs behind my house
i just feel a lil special about that cuz i live in the san fernando valley where all that shit goes down

Oo and today they were filming 24 in the wash down the street from me on devinshire and conoga
( i saw keith sutherlands chair lol) seriously

plz dont blow up the world

[Rooster @ Aug 9th 2006 1:00AM]

That's damn cool. I'm amazed that it could survive that harsh of an environment. Military implications are high on this one. HAL? CyberDyne? Damn, they got some high aspirations.

Wxrman, if you bothered to actually follow the link, the caption on that very picture sez...

"Japanese mountain climber Takeshi Matsumoto carries on unidentified climber to demonstrate how the hybrid assistive limb (HAL) robot works Sunday."

...so that's not the quadriplegic...

[Adeptus @ Aug 9th 2006 1:02AM]

So, are they intending to develop exoskeletons for disabled people?
Now THAT would be a useful & impressive use of the technology!
I'm not sure how they'd control it though...?

[Sheldon @ Aug 9th 2006 5:23AM]

Nooooo, It's Master Blaster!

[Ben @ Aug 9th 2006 9:44AM]

From TFA about the picture:

Japanese mountain climber Takeshi Matsumoto carries on unidentified climber to demonstrate how the hybrid assistive limb (HAL) robot works Sunday.

So its not the para'd dude in the photo.

[aeo @ Aug 9th 2006 11:13AM]

Pfft... Cyber-Dyne didn't invent the terminators, Skynet did... get your fictional future history right for a change. :-P

[lee @ Aug 9th 2006 11:33AM]

This guy needs a Solio - gotchathis.com

[freak1c @ Aug 9th 2006 12:33PM]

Well, I for one (almost) welcome our mountain climbing robotic suit overloads.

*ducks*

[John Conner @ Aug 9th 2006 3:25PM]

hahah forgot about that lol it is Master Blaster LOLZ
beyond thunderdome

and 2001: A Space Odessy WTF HALs a robot not an exo-skeleton

[Tim @ Aug 10th 2006 5:41AM]

I was wondering why they aborted and apparently they ran out of time, according to Kyodo News. The previous day they met with a blizzard.

I've seen the HAL up close in Akihabara and it's pretty cool. They do a demo with a guy from Tsukuba University who holds three big bags of rice out in front of his chest, no sweat.

I want Honda to equip Asimo with a HAL suit....;p

[Brandi @ Aug 5th 2009 5:35PM]

Just because he is a quadraplegic does not mean he cant grip the bars, it just means that he has four limbs that are affected, it could just be that his fine dexterity in his fingers is absent, quad is from c-1 all the way to c-7, a c-1 would be on a ventilator, superman was a c-2 or c-3 i believe, and a c-7 cam move and grip things, move arms, hands, fingers but like i said dexterity is just gone. Also, there would be a back rest to keep him sitting upright and some sort of seat belt. they are also able to make technology that can pick up the impulses from the brain about what muscle the person is trying to move and will move it for them so that is how a disabled person would be able to 'move' the suit.