Road Testing 'Real World Iron Man' Robotic Exoskeleton Boots

Speaker 1: I am at Stanford University to test out a new ankle Speaker 2: Exoskeleton Speaker 1: Developed by the Biomechatronic slab. It's essentially an exoskeleton on each of my feet that's designed to power me as I walk, making it a lot easier for me. It's powered on already, so I'm gonna test it out. Let's go. I feel pretty invincible. Speaker 2: [00:00:30] Imagine having a real life version of Iron Man's Armor designed to make you more powerful. Well, it might not be built with rocket thrusters, but researchers at Stanford University are working on something a little more realistic, and it could be a game changer for people with mobility issues. Speaker 3: This is the real World Iron Man. So it's an ankle exoskeleton, which is basically a motorized shoe as you can see. Um, [00:01:00] and what it does is it assists you when you're walking, so it helps you push off and actually save energy and walk more quickly. Speaker 2: Patrick Slade, a post-doctoral scholar at Stanford, developed this robotic boot to help older adults and people with muscle weakness. Speaker 3: So we have our shoe here, uh, just like you normally use, and then we have a carbon fiber system that runs between the foot and the shank. And so this would go around your calf, and as you are walking, what the motor does is it [00:01:30] actually winds this cable and allows you to push off and perform some of the work that your calf is doing. Um, and so by replacing your calf function with this motor, uh, we can really put a boost in your step and help you walk more easily and more quickly. Speaker 2: But this robotic boot isn't just designed to put a spring in your step, which brings us to this week's what the feature. The system actually uses AI to learn how you walk. Sensors across [00:02:00] the exoskeleton measure the motion of your ankle. And when your foot is touching the ground to understand exactly where you are in your stride, the system then feeds that data back to the motor. So the boot can offer the right level of assistance, perfectly targeted to the person wearing it. But designing a system that can adapt to different users was a challenge because everybody walks differently. Speaker 3: Well. So every time we'd have someone [00:02:30] you put it on, something would slightly break in a slightly different way, and then we'd make it more robust over time. Speaker 2: One of the ways the research team has overcome some of that work is with exoskeleton emulators. According to Steve Collins, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University and the head of the lab, these systems have been a game changer for research. Speaker 4: This will never walk out of the lab, right? It's big and heavy, but it's really versatile. So we can try lots of things without the overhead of [00:03:00] building new hardware. You can think about this as like a virtual reality system for your legs. Speaker 2: Thankfully, Patrick Slade and the research team have already done this iterating on their design. So all that's left for me to do is take it out of the lab and test it in the real world. Speaker 1: In front of me is the ankle exoskeleton, and it's gonna be pretty simple. I essentially just put on these shoes instead of my own ones. Thankfully, I wore nice socks today. Once these are strapped around my calves, I'll be able to walk in these shoes. It's gonna be a bit of a learning curve, but then I'm [00:03:30] essentially gonna find it a lot easier to walk. I'm keen to try it out, so, all right, let's go. Speaker 5: Oh, Speaker 3: Did you feel a little buzz? Oh, Speaker 1: They're vibrating. Speaker 3: All right. They're on <laugh>, so I'm gonna unplug you and we'll, we'll go through the checks. Yeah, they're both talking to each other, so that's good. Speaker 1: My shoes are talking to each other. Excellent. Speaker 2: Once we'd unplugged the ethernet cable from my sneakers, a sentence I never thought I'd say I was ready to get started. Speaker 3: Once you start [00:04:00] walking the first few steps again, won't do anything. Okay. Um, but then it'll start to kick in. You'll, you'll feel it start to tug you. Okay? And the important part is when you're ready to stop, you'll plant your last foot, and then you'll click that button and you can, you can hold it for a second if you want. Okay. Speaker 2: Walking around the Stanford campus, the first thing I had to get used to was a lot more bulk on my legs, but once I got the hang of wearing these boots, I could really feel the power they were giving me, lifting my heel off the ground. It kind of felt like having rocket boots [00:04:30] on. Still, the biggest obstacle to wearing these exoskeletons was my own brain. My leg muscles went into autopilot, and I kept being surprised when I had this boost of power. Speaker 1: I'm definitely getting more used to it as I walk. The more I walk, the more comfortable it's starting to feel. All right, I'm gonna switch it off now and see what happens. Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, <laugh>, my legs suddenly feel a lot heavier, and then it sort of started to switch back on because it's recognized that I'm walking again. [00:05:00] It feels kind of like, um, I don't know. Maybe when you get out of the pool and you suddenly have your weight returned to you, it feels kind of like a, a heaviness in my legs. So that's what they told me, that once the exoskeleton was switched off, you would really feel the difference. Takes a while to kind of gear you up, but then when you'd take it away, like, my legs feel lazy, right? Gonna go this way, Speaker 2: Walking around campus, I could really feel how quickly these exoskeletons adapted to the way I walked. And that's [00:05:30] where this research could be so helpful in the real world, being able to adjust to different patients with different needs. The Stanford team is also hoping to develop these prototypes further and eventually get them out into the real world to help people who really need it. Speaker 1: I've done it, I've done it. I've walked in an exoskeleton, nobody can touch me. Speaker 5: <laugh>, Speaker 1: This kind of technology, [00:06:00] I can really see the practical applications. It might be a little while off, but it's very cool as a prototype. And I could see myself wanting to wear this more often. For now, I'm just gonna have to wear it like a bit of a Iron Man suit and, um, hope that they'll let me take it off campus.