Yet another device that has been developed to help the elderly and people with weakened leg muscles. It will show its face in Osaka at the International Trade Fair on Barrier Free Equipments & Rehabilitation for the Elderly and the Disabled next week. What’s making this device so special is that is the most user friendly walking assistant so far.

Honda began working at it 9 years ago and it’s now finally in a good and feasible stage. You’re probably wondering how this works. Well, Honda’s humanoid robot ASIMO had a big contribution over development stage and it seems that the mechanism is sort of like the one using for the robot: the control CPU is receiving data from a hip angle sensor and communicates to the motors the amount of assistance needed for helping the users move.

The walking assistant weights 2.8 kg and comes in three shapes: Small, Medium and Large. It is charged with Lithium ion battery and has an operating time of 2 hours (calculated for 4.5km/hour walking).

This could be a real help for people that need it, and there are many worldwide who could take advantage from a walking assist device. We hope though more and more “helpers” like this will be developed, competition always is a good thing.