Can a robotic suit make you a better athlete?
This robotic suit may be able to help atheletes with their tennis swing. (Photo © Jeff Lieberman - bea.st)
Imagine that you’re taking a lesson from a tennis pro.
At the same time your teacher is telling you how to swing the racket, you actually feel how your arm should move – because you’re wearing a robotic suit.
Jeff Lieberman: What I wanted to do was augment what a teacher can do by doing it over every joint in your body, and doing it all the time.
Jeff Lieberman is in the Personal Robots Group at MIT. The idea for his robotic suit came to him in a dream. It’s based on the idea of simultaneous tactile learning, learning through physical touch, which can accelerate the pace at which people learn motor skills.
He said the robotic suit is as light as a sweater. The main equipment is a system of tiny vibrating motors. Reflective markers on the outside of the suit help cameras track how your body is moving, and translate the information into computer models of you and, say, the tennis pro.
Jeff Lieberman: In real time it can analyze the teacher’s position, analyze the student’s position, calculate an error between the two, and vibrate in proportion to that error over every joint.
Lieberman envisions that in the future, the suit could help people – for example, those recovering from stroke or other neurological problems. And good news for amateur athletes. Some day you may be able to buy the swings of professional golfers to practice in your robotic suit.
No one’s done any research yet that shows a limitation on the amount of information that we can take in at anytime. People have had up to 700 tactile actuators on their bodies, and have been able to process that information all at the same time.
Robot Suit May Help You Achieve a Perfect Golf Swing
For the good of mankind A video by Jeff Lieberman
Our thanks to:
Jeff Lieberman
Personal Robots Group
MIT Media Lab
Cambridge, Massachusetts
To my surprising, but it’s feasible for us to make it come true .Imposible is nothing. the more advancer the science is , the better life we live. thanks you , the scientist around the world.
We wont live a better life by making it easier! That is the worst thing ive heard. We may make life easier but never better.
Partially, i agree with Bob.I don’t think the suit will be as usefull as what the maker has said,for the reason that maybe we just can’t imagine what the real correct position is.And maybe for different people the correct poses aren’t identical.