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THE ROBOTS ARE COMING AUTHOR Mary Barry, MD
T
he first robot I was ever scared of
was Gort. Gort was the giant who
guarded Klaatu, the spaceman sent
to warn Earthlings that our atomic
weaponry would kill us all, and our
planet would die too, in the 1951
sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth
Stood Still. Klaatu tried to help us
but of course got shot dead. If you remembered to say “Klaatu
barada nikto,” Gort would let you live. My sisters and I vowed
never to forget it. I taped that phrase onto my shoebox of treasures
and practiced it every day from the age of six to about – well, 66. I
suggest you make a note of it.
Since I never, ever, (ever!!!) watch any suspenseful shows, I was
spared many bad guy robots until HAL 9000 in the film 2001: A
Space Odyssey. I suspected him from the beginning. That roving
red eye was far too creepy, and his voice had a totalitarian tinge. I
have not yet understood the ending of that movie, but HAL died,
which cheered me.
The “Danger, Will Robinson!” robot from Lost in Space was
just called Robot, and he was a good guy. To this day, you can yell
that out to people of a certain age, and they will instantly stop and
scan their environment for threats. He was the first robot I knew
who was useful.
We now have millions of robots who are useful (so much so that
they replaced humans in factory jobs), yet I am impressed with the
science behind them and felt obliged to honor them. Interesting
Engineering is a web publication that recently listed several. Sci-
ence Robotics, associated with the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, is devoted to news in the robot world.
For instance, for the amputee, we now have robotic limbs that
can track themselves in space and adjust their position minutely
with regards to foot strike and placement. These smart limbs are
clad in bionic skin, with “neural” input so the person can “sense”
the limb and tell it what to do. They can be adjusted for particular
endeavors: the long jump, for instance, versus sprinting.
What’s more, the warrior or paraplegic of the future can put
on an exoskeleton and leap around as if on the moon. Rehabbing
injured or weak muscles right now for the neurologically injured
patient can be safer and faster, because the exoskeleton steadies and
supports those regaining mobility.
HAL is the unfortunate name of the Japanese company Cyber-
dyne’s lower-body exoskeleton. The FDA-approved HAL stands for
Hybrid Assistive Limb and is a robot you strap your legs to. Sensors
attached to your hip and leg muscles detect the brain messages that
say “Go,” and the robot powers up your lower body. The HAL will
not move until you will it to move. Even a weak signal from your
brain will work; the company calls this “an interactive biofeedback
loop.” Testers report that, in 10 minutes or so of practice, they get
that Superman feeling. In Japan, industries use these for workers
who spend the whole day lifting heavy things. The US Army has
contracted with Lockheed Martin for field trials exploring their
ONYX lower body suit. Multiple other suit designers have provided
their exoskeletons to the Army for competition via comparison.
Those who need a cane can soon work with a robot cane being
developed by Dr. Sunil Agrawal’s team at Columbia Engineering.
He is a professor of engineering, rehabilitation and regenerative
medicine. His lab’s device, called CANINE, has been tested on
young people fitted with virtual reality headgear. It causes them to
believe they are walking on an unstable moving surface. In trials,
they walked on a mat fitted with an array of sensors. The device
“walked” alongside them with light-touch support and, so far, all
improved their gait safety with narrowed, shorter strides.
On the tiny end of the spectrum, Drs. Lihong Wang and Wei
Gao, professors of medical engineering at Caltech, have invented
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