Bionics and The future
80’s →microprocessors(it was when we built our computers).
90’s →connections between the computers(Internet, www)
XXI century →Intelligence(computers, machines, and intelligent robots).
Computers embedded in everything. some even Even within us , human being.
Today robotscan see better than us. But they cannot understand what they see. Today robots can hear better than us. But they cannot understand what they hear. It is believed that, by 2020 the processing capacityof the computerswill allow to emulate our brain.[12]
90’s →connections between the computers(Internet, www)
XXI century →Intelligence(computers, machines, and intelligent robots).
Computers embedded in everything. some even Even within us , human being.
Today robotscan see better than us. But they cannot understand what they see. Today robots can hear better than us. But they cannot understand what they hear. It is believed that, by 2020 the processing capacityof the computerswill allow to emulate our brain.[12]
Today's Iron Man
Holy Calvin Klein, here's a fashion tip for men and women both—actually, for the whole human race. It turns out that in the future we're not going to fight the robots, we're going to wear them. Some of us already do.
I just watched a paralyzed man walk for the first time in 21 years. A battery backpack sat neatly between his shoulder blades and a sleek metal exoskeleton was strapped to his waist, knees and thighs, its computerized sensors and motors acting as muscles and nerves. He looked like Iron Man after a diet.
Originally funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the robotic suit is now being designed for regular folks. Yangchih Tan, paraplegic since a 1990 car accident, spent 52 minutes standing in it and 14 minutes walking. He took 150 steps. No steps for two decades then 150 in one go! Afterward I asked how it felt, and he said, "I forgot how tall I am."
I met Mr. Tan at the headquarters of Ekso Bionics in Berkeley, Calif., where everything is about forward motion. By comparison, things just down the road at "Occupy Oakland" seemed a little sedentary. I empathize with those "walking on" Wall Street and sitting in, and camping out, in protests from Seoul to Stockholm. But if anyone knows about frustration, it's those who have been told they will never walk.[13]
Given the slightest chance, they focus on the future and the possibility of taking actual steps. Their stories are not sentimental sidebars, either. If there's a space race today, bionics could be it. And we could win. And that could employ quite a few people.
Companies world-wide see the potential. Rex Bionics in New Zealand, Argo Medical Technologies in Israel and Cyberdyne in Japan are all making exoskeletons. Lockheed Martin has introduced the HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier), a version of the suit that lets U.S. troops, 30% of whom get chronic back injuries, double the poundage they can carry without the strain. These machines soon may help not just the paralyzed but the aging, maybe even those who busted their knees skiing that Christmas in the Alps.
The wheelchair first appeared in A.D. 525 in China, etched on a stone sarcophagus. Attempts to replace it have been filling junkyards for 1,500 years. Nobody wants to add to the heap, so the new technology is held to a high standard.
Some inventors outside the U.S. say that their bionic progress is being blocked by the Food and Drug Administration (they call it "Forget Distribution in America"). But the real issue seems to be the ambition of the robots: FDA requirements get more stringent the more personal, and unsupervised, devices like these become.
"We are all at the starting line," says Eythor Bender, chief executive of Ekso, which is purposefully developing its exoskeleton first for use with physical therapists in rehab centers (with a ticket price of $130,000), then for monitored home use, and only after that, in 2013-14, for true personal use. "Getting someone to walk after 20 years, that's a risky maneuver," says Mr. Bender. "We're going step by step."
The company is targeting only those with spinal-cord injuries. They are a small portion of the 68 million world-wide in wheelchairs, but they tend to be young and spirited. What often got them into the wheelchair ""daring" is what helps to get them out.
"China—that's where I'm aiming," says Mr. Tan. He wants his own exoskeleton, with matching sensor-studded crutches, so that he can walk the Great Wall. It was amazing, he says, to be vertical and talking eye-to-eye again: "I got my dignity back. I don't always have to look up."
The big breakthrough, for whichever company dominates the bionics market, will be size. Ekso's exoskeleton weighs a scant 50 pounds, and the user doesn't feel it—the weight is totally transferred to the ground through its metal "bones." Still, the battery pack could be three times smaller, says Mr. Bender. Eventually the device may be so pared down that you could wear it like underwear.
I just watched a paralyzed man walk for the first time in 21 years. A battery backpack sat neatly between his shoulder blades and a sleek metal exoskeleton was strapped to his waist, knees and thighs, its computerized sensors and motors acting as muscles and nerves. He looked like Iron Man after a diet.
Originally funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the robotic suit is now being designed for regular folks. Yangchih Tan, paraplegic since a 1990 car accident, spent 52 minutes standing in it and 14 minutes walking. He took 150 steps. No steps for two decades then 150 in one go! Afterward I asked how it felt, and he said, "I forgot how tall I am."
I met Mr. Tan at the headquarters of Ekso Bionics in Berkeley, Calif., where everything is about forward motion. By comparison, things just down the road at "Occupy Oakland" seemed a little sedentary. I empathize with those "walking on" Wall Street and sitting in, and camping out, in protests from Seoul to Stockholm. But if anyone knows about frustration, it's those who have been told they will never walk.[13]
Given the slightest chance, they focus on the future and the possibility of taking actual steps. Their stories are not sentimental sidebars, either. If there's a space race today, bionics could be it. And we could win. And that could employ quite a few people.
Companies world-wide see the potential. Rex Bionics in New Zealand, Argo Medical Technologies in Israel and Cyberdyne in Japan are all making exoskeletons. Lockheed Martin has introduced the HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier), a version of the suit that lets U.S. troops, 30% of whom get chronic back injuries, double the poundage they can carry without the strain. These machines soon may help not just the paralyzed but the aging, maybe even those who busted their knees skiing that Christmas in the Alps.
The wheelchair first appeared in A.D. 525 in China, etched on a stone sarcophagus. Attempts to replace it have been filling junkyards for 1,500 years. Nobody wants to add to the heap, so the new technology is held to a high standard.
Some inventors outside the U.S. say that their bionic progress is being blocked by the Food and Drug Administration (they call it "Forget Distribution in America"). But the real issue seems to be the ambition of the robots: FDA requirements get more stringent the more personal, and unsupervised, devices like these become.
"We are all at the starting line," says Eythor Bender, chief executive of Ekso, which is purposefully developing its exoskeleton first for use with physical therapists in rehab centers (with a ticket price of $130,000), then for monitored home use, and only after that, in 2013-14, for true personal use. "Getting someone to walk after 20 years, that's a risky maneuver," says Mr. Bender. "We're going step by step."
The company is targeting only those with spinal-cord injuries. They are a small portion of the 68 million world-wide in wheelchairs, but they tend to be young and spirited. What often got them into the wheelchair ""daring" is what helps to get them out.
"China—that's where I'm aiming," says Mr. Tan. He wants his own exoskeleton, with matching sensor-studded crutches, so that he can walk the Great Wall. It was amazing, he says, to be vertical and talking eye-to-eye again: "I got my dignity back. I don't always have to look up."
The big breakthrough, for whichever company dominates the bionics market, will be size. Ekso's exoskeleton weighs a scant 50 pounds, and the user doesn't feel it—the weight is totally transferred to the ground through its metal "bones." Still, the battery pack could be three times smaller, says Mr. Bender. Eventually the device may be so pared down that you could wear it like underwear.
The “technical” achievements and solutions developed by organisms are often exemplary. They are mostly resource-efficient, ingenious, ecologically adapted and error-tolerant, i.e. with a tendency to sustainability. But admiration for bionics appears to be greater than its real successes. It is always the same success stories that are quoted (Velcro fastener, the form of an aircraft wing, honeycomb structures in lightweight construction, lotus effect etc.).
“Learning from nature”, in the sense of implementing the numerous models found in nature into industrial technologies, encounters massive problems. These are problems which typically occur during innovation processes (path dependencies), yet also problems specific to bionics (dealing with complexity, especially with regard to systems architecture, materials and production technologies). Bionics is currently on the verge of a technological leap forward which, as so often in such cases, opens up new opportunities whilst also entailing new risks. On the one hand, technological limits are being reached in some areas and it is increasingly a question of dealing with complexity. Bionic approaches offer orientation here, e.g. in the field of information and communications technology but also industrial ecology and management bionics. On the other hand, developments e.g. in molecular biology and nanotechnologies are making major contributions towards overcoming restrictions in the technical implementation of “biological solutions”. Current development work on the manufacture of artificial spider silk, artificial mother of pearl, artificial bone and tooth material are opening up the prospect of highly complex hierarchical structures simply “being grown” in future. This study explores the trends, the short- and long-term perspectives, the strengths and weaknesses of existing bionics networks and the current drivers and inhibitors of bionic innovation as well as sketching out approaches for resolving their successful development implementation.
“Learning from nature”, in the sense of implementing the numerous models found in nature into industrial technologies, encounters massive problems. These are problems which typically occur during innovation processes (path dependencies), yet also problems specific to bionics (dealing with complexity, especially with regard to systems architecture, materials and production technologies). Bionics is currently on the verge of a technological leap forward which, as so often in such cases, opens up new opportunities whilst also entailing new risks. On the one hand, technological limits are being reached in some areas and it is increasingly a question of dealing with complexity. Bionic approaches offer orientation here, e.g. in the field of information and communications technology but also industrial ecology and management bionics. On the other hand, developments e.g. in molecular biology and nanotechnologies are making major contributions towards overcoming restrictions in the technical implementation of “biological solutions”. Current development work on the manufacture of artificial spider silk, artificial mother of pearl, artificial bone and tooth material are opening up the prospect of highly complex hierarchical structures simply “being grown” in future. This study explores the trends, the short- and long-term perspectives, the strengths and weaknesses of existing bionics networks and the current drivers and inhibitors of bionic innovation as well as sketching out approaches for resolving their successful development implementation.