The military yesterday unveiled a locally made powered exoskeleton suit, a mechanized wearable system designed to be used in wartime or during post-disaster rescue and relief missions.
The 10kg lower-body exoskeleton, which is designed to boost the strength and endurance of its users, can move at 6kph, said Jen Kuo-kuang (任國光), the project manager and a member of the military’s top research body, the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology.
The exoskeleton delivers the right torque at the right time to assist knee flexion and extension to reduce the energy needed to cross terrain, squat, or kneel for its wearers, and to increase mobility and reduce fatigue, Jen said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
The exoskeleton’s lithium battery can run for six hours on a single charge, he added.
The institute has run tests on 105 soldiers to make sure the suit fits the average height and weight of Taiwanese, with minor adjustments being made based on the wearer’s body size, Jen said.
He did not provide an estimate on when the suit can be put into use by field units.
According to a budget proposal issued by the Ministry of National Defense, the military-use powered exoskeleton suit is part of a four-year NT$158 million (US$5.67 million) project running from last year to 2023.
The institute has completed the first phase of the project in designing the suit.
It will continue to modify the suit so that ultimately it can enable a user to carry a maximum load of 100kg when the four-year-project is completed, he added.
A source said the military is hoping the high-tech suits can be used during wartime and in post-disaster rescue and relief missions.
So far, only a handful of world powers, including the US, Japan, and Canada, are working on similar technology for military use, and their technology is not available at present for confidentiality reasons, which is why Taiwan needs to develop its own, the source said.
The project has learned from the US military’s experience in developing its own powered exoskeleton suit, the source said.
The military is working closely with the institute, a number of private medical technology, automation and robotic companies, and several local universities on the project, the source added.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching