RoboticsNedir

INDIANAPOLIS – Hoosier children with cerebral palsy (CP) and other movement disorders have a new and innovative treatment option: robotic therapy. Riley Hospital for Children unveiled its new Robotic Rehabilitation Center today, which will enable patients to use interactive robots and computer games to help re-program their brains and improve their motor functions through repetitive, controlled motion.

The Robotic Rehabilitation Center at Riley Hospital, the first of its kind in the state, is a collaborative effort between Riley, the Indiana University Department of Physical Therapy and Clarian Health Rehabilitation Services, and is funded primarily through the Robots to the Rescue Foundation. The center is distinctive in that it offers both upper and lower extremity robots for clinical programs and research; it houses a Motion Analysis Research Lab; and it offers the nation’s first-ever Medicaid support for robotic therapy.

“Our primary focus at Riley Hospital has been to provide outstanding patient care and service to Hoosier children and their families,” said Dan Fink, president and CEO of Riley Hospital for Children. “This new center takes our commitment one step further and puts Riley – and Indiana – at the forefront of innovation as we look to improve the lives of children.”

For children with CP and other movement disorders, rehabilitation can be particularly challenging because impaired motor skills affect coordination and movement. Physical and occupational therapies have long been considered the mainstay treatments for CP, but increasingly, therapists, patients and families are turning to robotic therapy for help.

“Robotic therapy is well documented in adults – particularly those recovering from strokes – but we are just beginning to use robotic equipment for children,” said Dr. Greg Wilson, co-director of the Robotic Rehabilitation Center and a developmental pediatrician at Riley Hospital. “So far, the early results are very promising and that makes this center and the research we’re doing very exciting.”

The Robotic Rehabilitation Center at Riley Hospital is housed in the Rotary Building, across from the Riley Outpatient Center.
About Riley Hospital for Children
As one of the nation’s leading pediatric hospitals and Indiana’s first and only comprehensive hospital dedicated exclusively to the care of children, Riley Hospital for Children, a part of Clarian Health, has provided compassionate care, support and comfort to children and their families for 85 years. Each year, Riley Hospital and Riley Hospital at Clarian North serve over 215,000 inpatients and outpatients from across Indiana, the nation and the world. Riley Hospital’s partnership with Clarian Health, and its strong affiliation with the Indiana University School of Medicine, makes it the only comprehensive clinical resource for Indiana’s children and the premiere source for health-related information for their parents. From simple care associated with the health and wellness of children and less complex specialty care to the most critically-ill and medically complex cases, Riley Hospital for Children is a national leader. Clarian Health operates the Methodist Hospital, Indiana University Hospital and Riley Hospital for Children campuses as a single hospital under Indiana law.

Anna Good’s cerebral palsy makes walking a challenge. But robot-assisted walks at Riley Hospital for Children’s new Robotic Rehabilitation Center could improve the 6-year-old’s balance and gait.

Decked out in pink, Anna wore a determined-looking smile Wednesday as the whirling arms of the robot turned her legs in a walking motion. The therapy is intended to help her form the connections between her legs and mind that could help her walk better.

Leaders of the new Riley center, which officially opens today, say the interactive robots hold the potential to help children with movement disorders improve motor functions such as walking and using their arms and hands.

The center — a collaboration involving Riley, the Indiana University Department of Physical Therapy and Clarian Health Rehabilitation Services — is the first facility in Indiana focused on robotic therapy for children.

Pediatric robotic therapy is available elsewhere in the Midwest, including the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. But the new Riley center provides many Indiana children with cerebral palsy the opportunity to receive therapy closer to home and possibly avoid waiting lists.

Robotic therapy has long been used on adults such as stroke patients but is increasingly being used to help children with conditions such as cerebral palsy or traumatic brain injuries.

“You’re reprogramming the brain,” said Dr. Greg Wilson, co-director of the new robotic center and a developmental pediatrician at Riley. “It’s very similar to what therapists have been doing for a long time, but this is a great new tool for them.”

Wilson said the center’s two robots — one for upper extremities and another for lower — help therapists precisely measure a child’s strengths and weaknesses to better tailor therapy. He added that a preliminary study of robotic therapy on children showed a 20 percent to 33 percent improvement in gait and walking.

The new center could help many children. About 8,000 babies are diagnosed with cerebral palsy each year in the United States, according to the advocacy group United Cerebral Palsy.

Susie Good, Anna’s mother, said she is on the list for her daughter to receive treatment in Chicago, but that the wait could be six months. Now, Anna, who lives in West Lafayette, is one of the first patients receiving therapy at the new Riley center, which is in the Rotary Building near the Riley Outpatient Center.

Anna already seems familiar with the routine. She makes jokes with physical therapist Ryan Cardinal and remarks that she’s been on the robot-assisted treadmill 50 times.

“It’s kind of boring,” Anna said.

Anna’s actually used the robot closer to 10 times — although each treatment session is packed full of activity, including an involved process of getting into and out of a harness.

Mom, though, has specific hopes for how the robot may help Anna. Good said her daughter tends not to bend her knees when she walks. “We’re hoping that this is going to help and force her to bend her knees more,” she said.

The center paid about $370,000 for the robot focused on lower extremities and $140,000 for the one focused on upper extremities. Much of the funding for the new center has come from the local Robots to the Rescue Foundation. The center also uses computerized motion analysis.

Riley said Indiana’s Medicaid program, which provides health coverage for needy children, has agreed to pay for pediatric robot therapy. Wilson added that commercial insurers have covered pediatric robotic therapy at other facilities.

U.S. availability nationwide at Toys “R” Us and Radio Shack stores, the SKITTERBOT’S unique patent pending 5-function USB remote allows for full control and quick & easy charging

Toronto, Canada – (August 31, 2010) – Desk Pets International (HK) Limited, creator of interactive micro-robotic toys and gadgets with big-play value, releases SKITTERBOT, the world’s fastest legged micro-robotic toy. SKITTERBOT’S 5-function remote provides full control and the 4 color, 4 frequency system allows for racing, battling, and exploring with multiple SKITTERBOTS. With a built-in USB charger battery cost is non-existent, giving SKITTERBOT hours of inexpensive playtime. Available now for $19.99 at Toys “R” Us and Radio Shack stores nationwide, SKITTERBOT provides hours of enjoyment like no other toy on the market.

Skittering at a speedy one foot per second, the SKITTERBOT is the fastest micro-robotic toy commercially available. The remote is a simple controller that includes forward, backward, left, right, and stop buttons. SKITTERBOT’S controller comes equipped with a retractable USB charger which plugs directly into your desktop or laptop computer for charging. A quick 30 minute charge gives you 15 minutes of playtime. Once activated, SKITTERBOT comes alive with pulsing heartbeat eyes that provide a menacing glare as it scurries across the floor. Desk Pets’ combination of micro-robotic technology and interactive game play placed the SKITTERBOT in the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association’s (ASTRA) Top 30 Toys at the 2010 Toy Fair in New York City.

Desk Pets International Managing Directors, Michael Trzecieski and David Piltz, are excited about taking interactive toys to a whole new level with the SKITTERBOT. “We’ve designed 4 colors, each with a separate frequency. This allows multiple users to race and battle SKITTERBOTS, providing more interaction and more control than any other comparable toy on the market,” says Trzecieski. Piltz highlights Desk Pets’ unique patent pending USB remote technology that really puts SKITTERBOT in its own category. “Charging the SKITTERBOT is easy and affordable. No need to spend hard earned money on new batteries every week, simply charge via USB and you’re good to go, quick, easy, and inexpensive.”

SKITTERBOTS come in red, blue, green, and a clear shell which allows a closer look into the inner workings of the robotic bugs. To check out the SKITTERBOT video click HERE.

SKITTERBOT features include:
• Fastest legged micro-robotic bug, traveling at one foot per second
• 5 function remote includes controls for forward, back, left, right, and stop
• Retractable USB charger built into remote, 30 minutes of charge = 15 minutes of play
• Flashing red heartbeat eyes pulse when robot is at idle
• Each color (red, blue, clear, and green) operates on own frequency, allowing for multi-player racing and battling

Industry is the one side of the Indian economy which has seen the maximum amount of mechanization, simultaneously creating a base for international trading ties at its very core. And the kind of technology today needs to be constantly maintained and upgraded not only due to wear and tear but also with respect to the modernization of the tools that can be effective to stay competitive in the global marketplace.

Contrary to popular belief, machines cannot replace men in most construction related businesses; it can only help in faster work completion and building a safe working environment. However, keeping in mind the increasing space constraints, a space effective approach is a welcome solution. For this, Saurabh Ambre and his peers, who have been pursuing their Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, Mumbai have created an initiative based on Mechatronics (a combination of mechanical, electronic and computer engineering) called the Omnibot.

What is the Omnibot?
As the name suggests, the Omnibot is an acronym for the Omni-directional vehicle with a robotic arm. It can travel in eight directions without changing its reference plane using special wheels called the Mecanum wheels. It gets its name the Swedish engineer Bengt Ilon, who crafted the wheel design in 1973 for the Swedish company Mecanum AB and filed for a patent in the US in 1975.

Saurabh Ambre, the lead for the project, tells us “This project utilizes the Mecanum wheel design. It is a wheel with a series of rollers attached to its circumference. These rollers have an axis of rotation at 45 degrees to the plane of the wheel. Due to Mecanum wheels, the robot can move diagonally at 45 degrees, which is its unique and a useful motion. The robot can rotate 360 degrees on its own axis. Mecanum wheels are useful to move objects without any effort in limited spaces as it does not require a turning radius. Besides moving forward and backward like conventional wheels, they allow sideways movement without changing the reference plane by spinning wheels on the front and rear axles in opposite directions.

”Using four Mecanum wheels provides omni directional movement for a vehicle without needing a conventional steering system. Slipping is a common problem in the Mecanum wheel as it has only one roller with a single point of ground contact at any one time. Due to the dynamics of the Mecanum wheel, it can create force vectors in both the x and y-direction while only being driven in the y-direction. Positioning four Mecanum wheels, one at each corner of the chassis (two mirrored pairs) allows net forces to be formed in the x, y and rotational.”

Understanding the Fabrication Design

The Omnibot consists of four Mecanum wheels on the base. The circuitry is nested under the specially hand-crafted chassis and body. The chassis has a unique shape, but the wheels are mounted in a square pattern to get the omni directional drive. A robotic arm is installed at the front side of the robot, which resembles a crane. The fabrication was conduction at Ambre Mechanical Works (AMW). The crane and the wheels are controlled with the help of a micro controller.

“The Mecanum wheel consists of six rollers with same diameter and is custom fabricated to fit the wheel size. The rollers can be made by an engineering plastic called Delrin or by wood. Each wheel has two metal plates and six petals on each plate, therefore six rollers fit into each of the wheels. There should be at least six rollers for each wheel and you can up the number to 8, 12 or even higher. The metal plate is first twisted and then bent to get the 45-degree angle. Each roller is mounted in between two petals of the wheel plate, forming one wheel. The angle between the rollers’ axis and central wheel axis could have any value but in the case of conventional Swedish wheel, it is 45 degrees. The angled peripheral rollers translate a portion of the force in the rotational direction of the wheel to a force normal to the wheel direction. Depending on each individual wheel direction and speed, the resulting combination of all these forces produces a total force vector in any desired direction, thus allowing the platform to move freely in the direction, resulting in force vector without changing of the wheels themselves.”

Controlling the Bot
At the core of the entire logic of this Microbotic code, lies a microcontroller. Mounted on the bot itself are the motion sensors and the power modules, which are all connected to the microcontroller. The microcontroller coordinates the flow of information and power on the robot. All other electronic system components must interface with the microcontroller. It not only contains of the robot’s program, but also processes all signals received from both transmitter and onboard sensor systems. It also manages power allocation on board the robot, and directly controls the motors. The microcontroller is programmed using the C programming language. The transmitter device enables users to control the system.

Commands are entered through the joysticks and buttons on the RF Transmitter, and sent through FM radio waves to the RF Receiver module mounted on the robot. In addition to providing the control link, the transmitter can be used to alter robot control options, such as drive configuration and joystick trims and scaling.

The Robotic Arm
An integral part of the design is a robotic arm installed on the robot. The robotic arm is a multifunctional controller. It has a claw to grab objects and has an arm for to translate motion to go up and down. It doesn’t have an extra mobile base because of the wheels; it gets its mobility from the robot itself. The arm is controlled by a multi-motor controller of the robot. The control is intended to avoid discontinuous motor operation problems. The system receives information from a host machine. Using this information, the controller adjusts the speed of each motor for a continuous movement of the arm. In order to allow a clear explanation, we have restricted the model to two motors only. Despite this simplification, the robot arm controller constitutes quite a complex system.

The robot arm controller is a complex system composed of two communicating modules – an electronic part, the controller, and a mechanical part, the two motors. Because of the nature of the behavior performed by these two modules, different languages are needed.
The electronic part performs a control function and is easier to be described using an extended based language. The mechanical part is described using a continuous model. This system is clearly a heterogeneous system.”

About the Creators
The team comprises of Saurabh Ambre, Kalpesh Damle, Amol Pande, Shantanu Mendhekar, Gaurav Rele, and Ajay Patil. The Omnibot has been fabricated at the Ambre Mechanical Works (AMW). Saurabh led the team that created the bot. He has been a member of the The Engineering Society for Advancing Mobility Land Sea Air and Space, and is also gaining proficiency in software applications like AutoCAD, and Pro Engineer.

He believes the project is a practical solution to the already clogged up construction areas. The bot is a prototype and can be worked upon to a robotic arm; it can be replaced with a fork lift to further enhance operational usage and safety norms.

He believes that while the project can be used for commercial usage, it will incur high cost of maintenance (like a forklift, for example), but it can do wonders in industrial usage.

The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon is launching a new interdisciplinary program called the Master of Science in robotic systems development (MRSD). In addition to training in robotics technology, students will also be exposed to hands-on practice and business and management opportunities typically not offered within a traditional robotics degree.

Primarily developed by Hagen Schempf, who will be the director of the program, the MRSD will make students more competitive to businesses and industries not only in robotics, but in any field that requires mechanical, electrical, or software expertise. Examples of students who may participate include entry-level professionals or those with five to 10 years of experience in industry, as opposed to those seeking academia or research positions through a traditional degree.

“What I wanted to make sure we offered is the ability to offer a more targeted, industry-savvy graduate that does not just know technology but is also a very knowledgeable business and management individual that would be able to contribute from day one,” Schempf said.

To ensure education equality for students in the new master’s program with Carnegie Mellon’s existing graduate degrees, requirements will be consistent. Applicants will be expected to have comparable GRE and TOEFL scores, as if they were applying to the Master of Science in robotics. An estimate of 20 to 40 students is expected when MRSD begins accepting applications. Those admitted will experience a 16-month curriculum of 114 units with a mandatory seven-month internship at a Carnegie Mellon commercial or government partner. It is this required internship that sets apart the MRSD from others at schools such as Worchester Polytechnic Institute and MIT. It provides the students the opportunity to test their knowledge and form connections with potential employers.

“You will learn things that would take years to assimilate in an industrial setting. I don’t know of any other degree like this where we have a combination of theory of robotics as well as hands-on and a required internship with a company for whom you may possibly work,” Schempf said.

The strength of the program will draw from talented faculty in the Robotics Institute, the School of Computer Science, the Heinz College, and the Tepper School of Business. In addition to the required internship, core courses will be drawn from systems engineering; manipulation, mobility, and control; sensors and perception; and robot autonomy and networking.

Students will be required to take one business and one technical elective. One project course will involve lecture, laboratory, and team project components in current topics in robotics or automation. The other two-semester business, management, and technical mini-courses will prepare students to develop a technology development plan, or a company’s complete course of action for a new product. More details can be found on the Robotics Institute and MRSD webpages.

“By having a graduate program dedicated to training people in the multi-disciplinary, systems-oriented perspective that is the core of RI robotics, we believe that we will produce graduates that can understand the complete scope of a robotics project, from hardware to software to systems integration,” said Reid Simmons, Ph.D. chair for the Robotics Institute. “This will make them better designers, developers, and managers.”

At the completion of this degree, graduates will be prepared to use their skills in companies or to pursue their own interests and make an impact on a rapidly growing field.

“Robotics technologies are having an impact that lies beyond what people usually imagine. The businesses related to robotics are growing rapidly,” said Matthew Mason, the director of the Robotics Institute. A perfect example, he noted, is Mary Koes, an alumna who helped create new strollers with a juvenile products company called 4Moms.

Regardless of what direction its students pursue, the new MRSD degree is a groundbreaking step. “From personal experience, when I had a start-up, the kinds of individuals that we are going to be training and educating are hard to find. Many companies love to find these individuals,” Schempf said.

Climbing walls comes easy to our friendly neighborhood Spidy but a new climbing robot is all set to conquer the lone terrain of Spiderman with gusto.

This climbing robot that comes with sticky feet and is fittingly called Stickybot III, is developed by a team of researchers at Stanford University, with professor Mark Cutkosky at the helm of the project.

For clinging to any surface, the Stickybot III uses its special feet. The feet draw inspiration from a gecko and have tiny hairs on them, which are almost 5 times smaller than that of human hair. The robot also has a long tail that reduces the weight load on each of its sticky foot, making the climb easier.

If you are interested to know the driving principle of the robotic climb, it’s van der Waals force that lets a gecko to hang and support its entire weight on one toe, when it places the other toe on the glass or pulls it back. Cutkosky said that the robot toes can be called a one-way adhesive, which stick only when the pull is in one direction. So, let’s watch how this Stickybot III fares in various climbing jobs.

A playful child-size humanoid robot with a face inspired by comics and Japanese Noh theater is being used to help teach autistic children social skills.

Kaspar (Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robots), developed at the U.K’s University of Hertfordshire, has a minimally expressive face so it doesn’t “overwhelm” its play partners with social cues, thus allowing them to individually interpret the expressions as “happy,” “neutral,” “surprised,” and so on, as they interact with the robot toy.

Makers of the bot–which has been in development for a few years now but is currently on display to the public through Friday at London’s Science Museum–deliberately took a low-cost approach to Kaspar so future research or commercial versions would be simple to make and easy to transport with on-board processing and battery power.

They built the robot for $2,500 using a child-shaped mannequin for the body’s base, off-the-shelf parts, and silicone-rubber RoboSkin with embedded tactile sensors that detect different kinds of touch.

Kaspar has minimal motors, only enough to simulate the most salient gestures involved in human communication. It has eight degrees of freedom in the head and neck and six in the arms and hands. Its blinking eyes have two axes of movement (and video cameras), and its mouth can open and smile in varying degrees.

Kaspar is part of the Aurora Project, which is aimed at investigating the possible use of robotic systems as therapeutic or educational tools for autistic children. The University of Hertfordshire researchers went out of their way to make Kaspar look like an approachable, non-threatening playmate. Since Kaspar has mainly been tested with boys in autism therapy, for example, the scientists gave the robot a playful boyish appearance complete with a baseball cap that kids can remove and replace.

Kaspar generally sits on a table in a relaxed way with legs bent toward each other, the way children often sit when playing. It then executes various actions, repeating them when getting vocal encouragement (hiding its face until the child says “peekaboo,” for example). Its face takes cues from the wooden masks used in Noh theater. The masks are designed to convey a variety of facial expressions depending on the angle at which they are viewed (the idea with Kaspar is that the child’s interaction will color his or her perception of the robot’s state, thus reinforcing ideas about appropriate social reactions that can be transferred to the human realm).

Children are encouraged to touch Kaspar freely, an exploration meant to increase body awareness and sense of self, as well as decrease the isolation those with more severe cases of autism may experience. You can watch examples of these interactions in the below video from 2008.

Robots, it appears, may become a more common fixture in autism treatment. As we mentioned earlier this month, soccer-playing humanoid robot Nao has been evolving by developing “emotions” under a European project and is now being used in the U.S. in sessions to treat autistic children.

The Iranian government has unveiled what it claims is a robotic bomber with enough range to – almost – reach Israel. The announcement came amid a flurry of statements promising dire retribution in the event of any attack on Iran.

“The Karar bomber drone has numerous capabilities, namely having a long operational radius”, defence minister Brigadier-General Ahmad Vahidi told official news outlets at the weekend.

“The jet-propelled unmanned plane can also gain altitude,” the general reportedly added.

Iran’s state-controlled Press TV news service says that the Karar has a “flight radius” of 1000km, and that it “is capable of carrying a military payload of rockets to carry out bombing missions against ground targets”.

Speculation regarding a possible Israeli strike against Iran has intensified lately as former US ambassador to the UN (and noted hawk) John Bolton said last week that Israel had only “days” left in which to hit Iran’s Bushehr reactor before it would be fuelled up by Russia. Bolton’s thinking was that once the reactor was fuelled, the possibility of a radiological release would prevent any action.

The Bushehr reactor does have some relevance to nuclear weapons, as spent fuel from the plant could be processed to yield weapons-grade material once it has been in operation for a while – though Russia says it will receive all spent fuel from Bushehr under its deal with Iran.

Most analysts regard the Bushehr plant as unimportant compared to Iran’s own uranium-enrichment facilities, however, which could yield material for nukes on a shorter and more certain timescale. Some of these are buried deep underground in hardened bunkers: others have been kept secret at times from the international community. It’s far from certain that Israel would actually be able to take out such sites as the Natanz centrifuge farm, or that having done so it would have got them all. Bushehr, despite Mr Bolton’s warnings, might very well be ignored altogether in favour of other and more significant locations.

Actually penetrating Iranian airspace, as opposed to destroying the plants, should be well within Israel’s capability. Russia has agreed in principle to sell Tehran advanced S-300 missile systems that would make this much more difficult, but as yet these don’t appear to have been delivered – despite some not-very-convincing claims by Tehran earlier this year. It’s also worthy of note that Israel made an apparently successful strike into Syria three years ago despite the presence of advanced Russian air-defence hardware.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the idea of an Israeli attack at the weekend, but added that if there was one Iran would strike back by unspecified means.

“Israel is too weak to stage a military strike against Iran, but if it attacks, it will receive a devastating response, which will make it regret its aggression,” he told al-Jazeera on Sunday.

“We … will give a hard and extensive response to any country willing to play with fire and making illogical actions against Iran,” defence minister Vahidi added today, unveiling Iranian production lines for fast-attack vessels.

The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval forces also stated that his ships were “twice as fast on average” as American warships, and that the seagoing Guard have “substantially boosted our deterrence and destruction capabilities”

Two Auckland engineers made world headlines with their robotic legs for the paralysed. As Suzanne McFadden reports, it was an overnight sensation seven years in the making.

What’s the secret to keeping the lid on a project that could go viral with the tiniest leak?

Richard Little, an amiable bear of a man with a Scottish brogue, is willing to tell. It’s about locking your garage door, keeping your head down and sealing your lips – don’t even tell your parents – until you are unquestionably sure your creation will do all it promises, and thus be a commercial success.

That’s what he and business partner Robert Irving, a childhood friend, did for four years in Little’s windowless garage on Auckland’s North Shore, while they built the first conceptual model of Rex, the robotic exoskeleton – a world-first standing and walking alternative to the wheelchair.

What came out of the shed was Igor – Rex’s elder, less sophisticated brother – with wooden feet and a drainpipe for an arm that could sit, stand and walk. Igor was constantly kept in the dark, as were Little and Irving’s family and friends.

“We spent four years working on this, and we didn’t engage with anyone – funders or users.

Article continues below

I didn’t even tell my parents till just before the launch,” Little says. Last month’s launch came seven years after the project began. His fiancee, Rachel Peterson, knew – because she was the test driver for Rex’s early trials, having been a wheelchair user since she was 5.

“We had to keep it secret because we didn’t want our competitors to know what we were up to,” says Little. “We felt exhausted, but we were so pleased – there had always been doubt. At that point, it felt like it now belonged to the users, rather than us. So it had to be finished for those people.”

That’s when Little and Irving decided to share the extraordinary robotic legs with others – but only a certain few.

The first was Jenny Morel, founder of venture capital manager No 8 Ventures, whose backing got the Martin Jetpack off the ground. They knew Morel, who loves these kinds of ventures, could keep it confidential. When they led her into the garage and whipped the sheet off Igor, she was “just blown away”.

“They had a prototype that could stand up and take a couple of steps, so it was really highly credible. I got very excited about it; they say I got as excited as them that day. So they were sure we’d do the deal together,” she says.

And they did. But again Morel had to act surreptitiously for the next three years; even approaching potential Rex Bionics board members was a clandestine affair.

One was British surgeon Jonathan Sackier, the medical mind behind Computer Motion, which made the world’s first commercial surgical robot, Aesop, and a developer of laparoscopic surgery and amniotic stem cells. Now a professor at the University of Virginia in the United States, Sackier was speaking at a conference in Auckland when Morel sidled up to him.

“I think I gave him the best pitch line of my life: ‘Would you like to come and visit our secret company?”‘ she says.

Intrigued, Sackier accepted the invitation, then Googled the only clue Morel had given him: Rex Bionics. “I found nothing, which I thought was fantastic. I’d no idea what they were building, but at least I knew they were doing it sensibly, and not creating unreasonable expectations,” Sackier says.

“When I got there, I liked the fact the premises were humble, that it was really a garage. I immediately warmed to Richard and his team – I knew I was in the presence of superior intellects. I have to tell you I got rather emotional about the whole thing.”

There and then, Sackier agreed to be a director of Rex Bionics, alongside Little, Morel and Paul Dyson, an authority in the medical devices industry. Sackier could see the life-changing benefits the 38kg Rex Legs could bring to wheelchair users, having seen many American soldiers paralysed in combat.

“To see a proud young man who was fit and strong suddenly limited in his mobility, and suddenly know you can help solve that problem … My brain was racing,” Sackier says.

“Rex could be absolutely huge. It could make Intuitive Surgical look small.” Intuitive Surgical is a prosperous Nasdaq-100 corporation manufacturing robotic surgical systems.

As Rex Bionics needed larger premises, it became difficult for Little to lease factory space without giving away the company’s business. “I had to say we wanted it for light engineering,” he says. “I’m sure some of them thought we were starting a P factory.” They found a suitable space in Albany and are now on the verge of having to find somewhere bigger again.

“It was difficult engaging suppliers to make parts for Rex. They would sign confidentiality agreements, and every one of them respected that because there was an overwhelming belief in what we were doing. Sometimes even their workers wouldn’t know what they were making parts for.”

Each Rex, controlled by a joystick, has more than 4700 individual parts.

“People would come in for a job here, and after their first interview still wouldn’t know what the job was for.”

Until Hayden Allen, a Rex Bionics employee paralysed from the chest down after a bike accident, stood and walked in the robotic legs before a worldwide audience, he had managed to keep the project a secret from his astonished mother and father.

While keeping mum may have added to Rex’s integrity when it was finally unveiled to an unsuspecting but approving world, the true success of the Rex story, Little says, is in the execution.

“It’s all about the execution, the hard work you put into it. Of course it’s a lovely story, about how Robbie and I got together seven years ago and created this robotic technology. But the other side of the story is the late nights, the early mornings, the sheer effort it required,” he says.

“There is no substitution for doing the hard yards. It was never the same challenge – sometimes it was technical, sometimes it was people.”

The “lovely story” began on a not-so-upbeat note, when Little was working as an engineer at British Aerospace and got a phone call from Irving. They’d been friends since the age of 13, mucking about on cars together in their garages in the Scottish highland town of Fort William. They’d both become engineers, working on different high-tech projects together through their careers, and had both separately emigrated to New Zealand.

Irving called to say he’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. “We figured straight away we were going to do something,” Little says. “Both our mothers were in wheelchairs – Robbie’s for MS, mine after a stroke.

“It struck us, as engineers, that while a wheelchair is a wonderful thing, it has definite access problems. Three stairs at the front of a municipal building is like a mountain. But the world isn’t flat and we can’t change it.” So they approached it from another angle.

Little had dabbled in robotics before, inspired by the “Power Loader” exoskeleton in the Aliens movie, worn by Sigourney Weaver in her clash with the Alien Queen. “I’d built a humanoid robot six months before, so I suggested we build a set of legs for Robbie.”

Six months later, back living in Auckland, the pair met in a Newmarket bar and drew the first plans on a beer mat.

What developed next is what they call a “fusion of engineering and disability”.

When Igor first walked, they were pretty excited – “because it was a cool piece of technology and we were going to be able to deliver it to users. It had the functionality, it was safe and efficacious”. After they spoke with Morel and her business partner, Mark Edwards, the numbers came together too.

“We knew that there would be enough people to use it and buy it. We could see we were going to be able to deliver it to a large number of people,” Little says.

No 8 Ventures gave Little and Irving, then known as Smart Orthotics Ltd, enough funding to continue working with the technology for another year, move into a workshop and hire more engineers. Over the seven years, Rex’s innovation would cost around $10 million.

Rex Bionics now has 25 engineers and a handful of marketing and sales staff. Eighteen months ago it hired an executive in San Francisco to help develop contacts in the US – predicted to be Rex’s single biggest market. But the decision proved premature.

Rex will have to get FDA approval before it can be sold in the US; safety requirements also have to be met for the British and European markets.

Much of the robotics from the original Igor – with its on-board computer, battery pack and mechanical moving parts – have been retained in Rex. The biggest leap forward in the past three years has been in safety systems.

The company expects to have its first sales in New Zealand before the end of the year, starting with Auckland. Much interest has come from Canada, Mexico and Turkey.

Rex is expected to retail internationally at around US$150,000 ($205,000), and a little less here in New Zealand. Morel doesn’t see sales being constrained by the price.

“Expensive? Compared to what? I think the Engadget website said it best, when they wrote the worst news was the initial asking price, ‘but then we’d hardly say we’re qualified to judge the value of being able to walk again’.”

When asked why a robotic exoskeleton had not been made for this purpose before, Little has a simple answer: because it’s really hard. “There are three huge technological challenges. You need a sophisticated robotic platform that can handle thousands of things – safety, balance, going forward, measuring battery temperatures. Mechanically, it needs to be strong enough and light enough. The third is fitting humans into a robot – building a machine that’s adjustable for a large number of people.”

Sadly, Rex isn’t the answer for everyone. Potential users need to undergo medical checks from their physician and physical therapist to ensure there are no reasons why they shouldn’t stand or walk. So far, seven people have tried Rex, some with spinal cord injuries, others with muscular dystrophy.

“You never tire of seeing their reactions,” says Little. “It’s so emotional. It’s a very personal thing, sharing their personal journeys, and you share yours with them. You have this very close interaction with strangers, but they quickly become family.”

Rex users will be “customers for life”. They need to be fitted into the robotic legs, trained to use Rex and require a constant maintenance programme at Rex centres, which will eventually be set up globally.

Little’s partner, Rachel Peterson, has a child’s version of Rex on her wish-list. Peterson was born with muscular dystrophy, getting around on a skateboard until she had to use a wheelchair at school. She now manages the Rex trials, but was the original guinea pig, spending hundreds of hours in the device, testing critical adjustments.

A medical complication which requires impending surgery means Peterson is no longer using Rex, but she says it’s been a blessing in disguise.

“It’s meant I can now concentrate on mentoring others through the process. I know what they’re going through and share everything I’ve learned. I love keeping people safe – I’m the mother hen around here.”

Peterson and Rex should be reunited in December – she plans to walk down the aisle to Little at their wedding.

Now Rex is firmly in the limelight, what became of Igor? He is now dismembered, part of a shrine to dead robots. “It’s bits and pieces of robotics, and we’re proud of it,” Little says. “The reason Rex doesn’t break today is because of all of these parts that went before him.”

Conspicuous by his powerful white torso, the legless android named Robonaut 2 seems to be straight out of Star Wars movies.

The three-foot-four-inch tall Robonaut 2 will become the seventh crew member on board the next Discovery shuttle launch.

NASA will send Robonaut or R2 to permanently reside on the International Space Station later this year. He will become the first humanoid robot in space, reports the Daily Mail.

NASA and General Motors jointly developed R2 as a robotic assistant that can help human astronauts in space.

The 127-kg R2 comprises a head and a torso with two arms and two hands. It will be used for microgravity experiments in fluid physics, materials science, biology and biotechnology.

Its powerful arms are two feet eight inches long and are powerful enough to carry 20 pounds each in Earth’s gravity.

But the robot’s fingers are also extremely sensitive and allow R2 to operate machinery with almost the same dexterity as a human astronaut.

R2 will launch on space shuttle Discovery as part of a mission planned for Nov 1. Once aboard the station, engineers will monitor how the robot operates in weightlessness.

The dexterous robot not only looks like a human but also is designed to work like one. With human-like hands and arms, R2 is able to use the same tools station crew members use.

It will also keep people back on Earth up to date with its adventures with its very own Twitter account.