Lightweight Robosuit Is Like Stilts On Steroids

What would you do if you were a foot or two taller? How about if you had an arm span two times as wide as you have now?

A group of Japanese engineering students asked themselves the same question and built a wearable chassis that does just that. Their project is called “Sukerutonikusu”, which we believe roughly translates to: “This is freaking awesome, we’ll take two!”. [Thopter] however informs us that it translates to “Skeletonics”, a fusion of the words “skeleton” and “mechanics”.

The suit is comprised of lightweight aluminum pipes and sheeting, allowing for it to be powered solely by the person wearing it. Stepping inside the chassis looks like it lifts the wearer about a foot and a half off the ground, while increasing their wingspan by nearly 6 feet! In the video embedded below you can see that while in the suit, the wearer is quite agile, and even has the ability to run at a decent tick.

If this ever comes to market, you can bet we will buy one in a heartbeat – until then, we will have to settle for making RoboCop sounds as we walk about the office.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdPpWy_O09k&w=470]

49 thoughts on “Lightweight Robosuit Is Like Stilts On Steroids

  1. Art imitates art, imitates art.

    When I first saw “Aliens” and Ripley comes out dressed up as the Macross I thought that Cameron was ripping off the Japanese giant-robot.

    Now it’s come full circle and the Japanese have ripped off Cameron’s Ripley fork-lift. All they need is the “Get away from her you Bitch!” line.

  2. Awesome! Should be relatively easy to turn this into a powered suit. It looks like an early version of the exo-suit from Alien(s?).

    Also look at the guy’s face in that pic. Caption:
    “Yes, I have the POWARRR!” XD

  3. The street chasing scene is frikking awesome!

    Can imagine that the mechanical disadvantage of the pantograph design will make to use it very fatiguing quickly. I would like to see one with a full body shell and lipo powered. That would be just mind blowing to watch live on the street.

  4. Twice the arm span with half the strenght lol.

    And to go along Bob, I can re-design the whole 3D model if you guys team up and fund me for the time invested ;p. Then we’ll all have our own open source exosqueleton =P

    btw,I’m serious about modelling it ;p

  5. Part 2: Replace the person with a series of high torque servos. Make a secondary suit with rotory encoders to be worn by the person controlling it remotely. (Why is it that the first place I always go is RC?)

  6. Not bad, they made some sense with PVC roll cage and aluminum framing where it counts. Although arming it with a soda bottle rocket in the right arm is a bit funny. Must have left a mess.

  7. It’s rather hard to tell from the video, but is the wearer carrying the entire weight of the torso/arms on his own? I would have expected them to build supports from the leg framework to the torso to carry the weight…

  8. As for all the leverage fail comments,

    Passive-Mech
    This is a japanese whole body fitness machine….
    A few months of training and the Operator’s newly muscled physique will allow the mech normal human strength..

  9. This looks like it would be fun to use.
    Running looks a bit awkward, maybe some shock absorption in the ankles/feet would make it a bit smoother?
    Add some air muscles or fast-acting hydraulics to the limbs and have a real patlabor. :)

  10. Hello HAD…

    are you aware of SI units? This is not an assy request from a European monkey…
    From wikipedia…
    In the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, the United States government designated the metric system of measurement as “the preferred system of weights and measures for U.S. trade and commerce”.

  11. torwag: the US gov’t can decide that metric may be “preferred” for gov’t use, but until the citizenry decide that it’s also preferred for private use, feet, yards, miles, etc. will remain in use.

    If you’ll allow a personal anecdote, I’ve heard of a new US company preparing to do business with a Canadian company. The US company went to the trouble to convert everything in their presentation to metric for the convenience of the Canadians. However, as they were giving their presentation, they noticed the Canadians in the audience pulling out calculators and notepads, converting everything back to imperial so they could understand it ^_^.

    If a system is widely understood, there’s no need to make unnecessary changes simply to “fit in”.

  12. Sorry, to glance over how awesome this is, and focus on the first commenter. Read twice before jumping in on supposed spelling errors.

    Presumably you mean “comprises” or “composed of”

    Posted at 8:06 am on Mar 9th, 2011 by benboy00

    Read it again my friend. It says Comprised.

    comprised
    past participle, past tense of com·prise (Verb)
    1. Consist of; be made up of: “the country comprises twenty states”.
    2. Make up; constitute

    Nothing wrong with his spelling or grammar, even if it is different to what you would prefer, it is still correct.

  13. sugoi neh!!!!

    haha love it, looks like the chassis from a
    warhammer dreadnought, and the basis for fallout
    3 power armour. Along with the servo controlled
    walking assist japanese invention a little while
    ago.

  14. I have long predicted that the amount of giant robo-suits in Japanese anime would lead to a new generation of engineering students trying to build them for real.
    Smug mode on :)

    And re: the SI measurements thing, it’s different over here in the uk, basically, everybody understands miles AND kilometres, and will use which ever system fits better for the dimension they’re describing, to the point of describing a plank an inch thick and a meter long…
    If I’m designing something, or writing measurements down I’ll always use SI though, partly because that’s what I learnt as a physicist, but mainly because it makes the maths easier :)
    Whatevers, learn both, and be prepared to convert for those that don’t is my take on it.

  15. finally, an Appleseed-related comment, the obvious inspiration for these japanese students. Want to see that exoskeleton with Guge-D armor, would make an awesome cosplay.

  16. imagine being in one of these for a couple of months. when we take it of, everything we do feels like.. so easy because of muscle adaptation to the extra load. suddenly can feel like superhuman!

  17. It’d be cool if someone turned up some instructions/schematics in english, maybe one can really build one himself.
    I wonder if you could replace the frame parts with wood (wood tools beeing more availible)

    I also understand the upper/torso part to be independent of the lower/legs part (at least from one pic, it’s not clear to me from the video).
    I see the rationale for this, the spine has more axes of movement the an armo or leg. However, in case you trip, the whole weight of the upper part has to be taken by you (not the exoskel structure)

    Anyway, I totally see this as an instrument for weird sports. Mecha soccer, anyone?

  18. Aluminum Crutches , PVC pipe , Bike cables , White Belts , seems super easy enough.
    s
    I like how they went the extra mile and did the legs too, but I’d rather see it with those Leaf Springs that amputated runners use. A prosthetic bouncy foot thats 2X the size as regular ones.

    I want to see instructions for an all PVC pipe version. (- minus bolts, wire)

  19. Great idea! Now add power and controls so
    someone wearing the suit could run into
    the rubble after an earthquake and save
    lives. Run unit from an umbilical cord
    attached to an ATV so it could get close
    to the action. Firemen, policemen,
    paramedics, etc. could rescue people.
    Think of a fireman running into a burning
    house and saving lives!

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