Techotic

We all know that working in the farms is no walk in the park. So naturally farmers do need all the help they can get especially if they’re aging Japanese farmers.

Professor Shigeki Toyama and his team at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have developed a wearable power-assist robot suit to assist the farmers and boost their strength in the field.

Relying on real-time data from an array of sensors that detect muscle movement, the suit enhances physical strength by controlling the movement of 8 different motors that provide support to the shoulders, knees, arms and legs. To the wearer, heavy objects seem as light as 10 kilograms (22 lbs).

In addition to providing extra muscle to lift and carry things, the power-assist robot suit helps farmers with manual tree-pruning work by enabling them to hold their arms up for long periods of time without getting tired, according to the researchers. The suit also doubles the wearer’s strength when performing grunt work like uprooting oversized daikon radishes from the earth.

Below Ryosuku Tanaka a 25 year old graduate student tested the suit out, by lifting and carrying 20-kilogram (44-lb) bags of rice with ease. The suit will be available in 4 years time at the price of $4,500 USD.

[via pinktenacles]