between the exoskeleton and the human in it at a rate that
wouldn’t rip off an arm or a leg. Actuators—compartments
packed with gears, electronics, and a lithium battery–pow-
ered motor running on DC current—performed this function.
In 2005, Kazerooni, Neuhaus’s former Berkeley advisor,
founded Ekso Bionics with two partners. The company man-
ufactured the first commercially available exoskeletons.
The suits had two actuators per leg, placed outside the hip
and knee joints. The legs connected to an aluminum torso
structure that supported the user’s legs, back, and hips in
an upright position. A computer in the backpack ran move-
ment algorithms, while the user directed the suit through a
control panel on one of the device’s two crutches.
The suits were expensive, costing as much as $80,000.
They weren’t covered by insurance and required a steep
learning cur ve. The batteries failed to provide enough power
for all-day use. And, of course, they weren’t as convenient as
legs: They moved slowly and couldn’t be used on wet or rough
terrain. But for all their problems, exoskeletons delivered a
kind of miracle: A paralyzed person could walk again.
Neuhaus thought he could improve the device. Earlier in
his IHMC career, he had designed a walking algorithm for
DARPA that allowed a four-legged, dog-sized robot to tra-
verse lunar landscapes. He helped develop software for a
humanoid robot named Atlas that took second place in the
DARPA robotic challenge, netting IHMC a $1 million award
and international prestige. Now he aimed to import tech
from both projects to a newer, better exoskeleton.
Because IHMC is a nonprofit com-“Having a human
being in an
exoskeleton
makes the job
of balancing
a lot harder.
But of course,
the human being
is the whole
point.”
continued on page 82May/June 2020 37