Category Archives: Robotics

GE Aviation has acquired a United Kingdom-based manufacturer that builds snake-arm robots for work in confined and hazardous areas.

Terms of the deal to acquire OC Robotics were not disclosed.

The robots are typically used in hazardous and hard-to-get to confined areas for inspections, repairs and cleaning in the aerospace, construction, nuclear, petrochemical and security industries, GE said in a statement.

GE will use the technology for work on jet engines, a company official said. The snake armed robots can stretch more than nine feet and bend more than 180 degrees, GE Aviation said.

OC Robotics will play an important role in how we service our customers engines, Jean Lydon-Rodgers, GE Aviation Services vice president and general manager, said in a statement Monday.

OC Robotics, which started two decades ago and is located in Bristol, England, has worked for more than a decade to develop the technology, officials said.

For 15 years, OC Robotics invested heavily to develop snake-arm robot technologies, and the aviation industry has always been a target area for this technology, Andy Graham, OC Robotics director, said in a statement.

GE Aviation operates the $51 million Electrical Power Integrated Services Center, opened in 2013, on the University of Dayton campus and produces aircraft parts at a facility in Vandalia. The company report revenues of $26 billion in 2016 and employs 44,000 employees, including 9,000 in southwest Ohio, said company spokeswoman Deborah Case.

OC Robotics was a privately held company and revenues were not immediately released.

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GE Aviation will expand engine service business in robotics deal - Dayton Daily News

Within a few minutes, Ive got one hand grasped gingerly on the zipper. The other is holding the bags handle in place. I unzip it slowly, as if performing surgery. Theres none of the pressure of a real life battlefield, but the potential humiliation of having to start all over again in front of the film crew is enough motivation to it right this time.

RE2 Robotics (pronounced Re-Squared) control scheme takes some getting used to. Each arm serves as an analog to the limbs on the military robot a few feet in front of me, but the control scheme and the exacting nature of every arm movement present a bit of a learning curve.After a few frustrating misses, however, I manage to save face in front of a room full of onlookers silently judging my robotic manipulation skills.

The Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon spinoff has been developing the control scheme for about a decade now around two-thirds of its existence. Its the result of the growing movement of biomimicry in the robotics field, as more and more engineers look toward nature for inspiration. In the case of Re2s Robotic Manipulation System, it was right in front of them the whole time. What better scheme could there be for controlling robotic grippers than our own arms?

The controlsystem sits atop a tripod, with two grips mounted on bars that curl over top like bicycle racing handlebars. Each grip has series of buttons controlled by the thumb. Its those last few, which control the robots motion and camera position, that take the most getting used to. But the RE2 employee who operates the robot for the sake of our video demo assures us that within a couple of hours, the whole thing becomes second nature.

And thats the motivating principle behind the system: a control scheme that closely mimics our own movement. The scheme is designed to operate the rovers arms in some of the high stress environments, from decommissioning roadside bombs to handling harmful materials in the wake of a major disaster like 2011s Fukushima accident. Its the third D in the dull, dirty and dangerous paradigm roboticists inevitably raise when discussing the importance of replacing certain jobs with automation.

Often times, you still need the human intellect to perform those tasks, founder and CEO Jorgen Pedersen explains. But theyre dangerous, so the question is, how can we project that human capability remotely, so theyre still able to do their job and leverage the human intellect to solve a really big problem? Thats what were trying to do keep the human safe, but allowing them to still do their job.

Over the last decade, off-the-shelf Xbox and PlayStation controllers have become a fairly standard solution for controlling these sorts of robots around the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Theyve proven a decent makeshift solution. After all, many enlisted troops fit firmly within a key demographic for the consoles and are likely already familiar with their controls.

But the systems could benefit from a more direct method in high pressure situations. So, a decade ago, Re2 began to develop its current control scheme, one it believed would be even more intuitive than a gaming console by directly mimicking human movement. The companys system includes two modular arms that affix to a military robot like Endeavors (formerly iRobot) Packbot, along with the tripod-mounted control scheme.

If youre going to project that human capability, the most human way to control it is to have it be as much like you as possible, says Pedersen. Thats where weve come over the past decade, having true human-like capability. Its no coincidence that these robots look like human torsos. These systems are a projection of you, remotely. Its almost like an avatar, where youre dealing with a threat out of harms way.

The operator controls the system from a safe distance by viewing the robots camera feed from a remote laptop. The company is also developing a set up that utilizes a VR-style headset to complete the avatar-like scenario, similar to the system that many drone makers have employed.

RE2 sees military applications as just the first step for the system. And its a logical place to start. Like so many robotics startups, military contracts are what kept the company afloat for many of its formative years. But while Pedersen concedes that such a control system could be utilized for hand to hand combat, he prefers, unsurprisingly, to focus on the positive.

Yes, people could use this technology for other means, he says. But our charter is saving lives and extending it into new markets like health care, where we can do patient assist. [We can] help a person from a wheelchair to a bed or a wheelchair to a toilet, as the brawn for a caregiver.

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RE2 is making bomb-defusing robots as intuitive to control as your ... - TechCrunch

Robots capable of churning out 400 hamburgers in an hour could one day become a permanent fixture across fast food chains. Momentum Machines, the Google (GOOGL)-backed startup that specializes in building these high-tech, artificial intelligence-powered devices, has just secured over $18 million of new venture capital, according to an SEC filing.

San Francisco-based Momentum Machines debuted its prototype burger-making machine in 2012, eliciting awe from tech geeks and criticism from employment activists. Its not hard to understand why: the startups robots can grill a beef patty, layer it with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and onion, before putting it in a bun and wrapping it up to go 400 times in an hour a feat that no human could ever hope to achieve.

This revelation prompted former McDonald's (MCD) CEO Ed Rensi to tell Fox Business last year that these machines could provide a huge boost to fast food chains, particularly as the industry is under pressure due to rising minimum wages. "It's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries, he said. (See also: McDonald's Is Desperate to Modernize Its Franchisees.)

Source: Momentum Machines/Foodbeast

Rensis comments came shortly after Momentum Machines applied for a building permit to convert a ground-floor retail space in San Francisco into a restaurant. Since then, the secretive company has disappeared from the public eye again, although its latest windfall and list of high profile investors suggests that Momentum Machines isnt about to become the latest startup to vanish into obscurity. (See also: Robots Really Do Take Jobs.)

According to S&P Capital IQ, a number of well-known firms are invested in the company, including Google Ventures, Alphabet Inc.s venture capital arm. Other backers include K5 Ventures, Lemnos Labs and Khosla Ventures, the California-based venture capital firm whose founder Vinod Khosla regularly appears on Forbes Midas list.

Momentum Machines board also boasts plenty of experience. According to Axios, Sven Strohband, chief technology officer of Khosla Ventures, and Stanford University physics professor Zhixun Shen are two of the names responsible for making important decisions at the startup firm.

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Hamburger-Making Robotics Firm Secures $18 Million (GOOGL) - Investopedia

Barron's

Why Google Didn't Get Along With its Robots Barron's Robots have now become a casualty of that discipline. Last week, Alphabet announced it was selling Boston Dynamics, its advanced engineering and robotics unit, to Japan's Softbank. The sale -- terms were not disclosed -- reflects an effort by the ... Google's Parent Alphabet Agrees To Sell Robotics Company To SoftBankMediaPost Communications Google's AI Vision May No Longer Include Giant RobotsThe Ringer (blog) Google Sells Large Parts of its Robotics Division to SoftBankThe Merkle The Boston Globe -Government Technology -PYMNTS.com -IEEE Spectrum all 95 news articles »

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Why Google Didn't Get Along With its Robots - Barron's

THORNTON, Colo. Amazon announced Monday it plans to open a second fulfillment center with a robotics facility in Thornton.

The new 2.4-million-square-foot center will create 1,500 full-time jobs, the electronic commerce and cloud-computing giant said.

The three-story building will be on about 80 acres at the northeast corner of Interstate 25 and East 144th Avenue.

Construction will begin later this month with the center expected to open in August 2018.

We are excited to continue growing in Colorado with the new Amazon Robotics fulfillment center in Thornton, Akash Chauhan, Amazons vice president of North American operations, said in a statement.

This facility will utilize Amazon Robotics, vision systems, and more than 20 years worth of software and mechanical innovations. We are grateful for the support we have received from state and local leaders who have helped make this project possible.

Amazon is building a fulfillment center in Aurora that will create 1,000 jobs. The Thornton facility will handle smaller products such as books, toys and electronics.

The City of Thornton is extremely excited Amazon chose to locate this state-of-the-art facility in Thornton, Mayor Heidi Williams said.

Amazons commitment to the communities where their fulfillment centers are located is impressive. They will be the largest employer in Thornton and represent the cutting edge of innovation in the e-commerce market.

We are pleased to continue working withAmazonas it grows and creates jobs in Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a statement. Our talented workforce will have the opportunity to learn new, valuable skills withAmazonand work alongside innovative technology.

We look forward to the great jobs with competitive wages and comprehensive benefits thatAmazonwill bring to the state.

39.957687 -104.985292

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Amazon to open robotics fulfillment center in Thornton, creating 1500 jobs - FOX31 Denver

Ashley Barnes was 35 years old when doctors told her she would never walk again.

A botched spinal procedure in 2014 paralyzed her from the waist down. The Tyler, Texas, resident had been an avid runner, clocking six miles daily when not home with her then-9-year-old autistic son, whom she raised alone. Life in a wheelchair was not an option.

I needed to be the best mom I could be, Barnes said. I needed to be up and moving.

So she threw herself into physical therapy, convinced she would one day run again. Soon she realized that wasnt a reality.

Although she wore a brave face, I would save my moments of crying for my room, she said.

About a year later, hope resurfaced when she learned of the ReWalk system, a battery-powered robotic exoskeleton that attaches to the legs and lower back. It contains motors at the knee and hip joints and sensors to help it adjust with each footfall. While wearing the device and holding two forearm crutches, someone with complete lower-limb paralysis can walk.

Rehabilitation centers often employ such devices in physical therapy, which is how Barnes first encountered one at the Baylor Tom Landry Center, a rehab clinic in Dallas. After seven months without being able to stand, she did. Then she took a step as she began to learn how to walk again.

In 2014, the ReWalk system became the first personal robotic exoskeleton approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The following year, the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to cover the exoskeletons for qualifying vets. Meanwhile, several companies began touting similar devices. For example, Ekso makes units used to rehabilitate people after spinal cord injury or stroke.

Health insurers, however, generally dont cover the expensive equipment.

After working with the ReWalk system at her rehab center, Barnes, who uses a wheelchair at home to get around, decided she wanted one of her own. But Tricare, her insurer, denied the request.

In a statement, Tricare said it does not cover these devices for use on a personal basis due to concerns with their safety and efficacy. This is particularly important due to the vulnerability of paralyzed users in the event of a fall.

Two years and countless nos later, Barnes still doesnt have one because, according to Tricare, it isnt medically necessary.

Barnes strongly disagrees.

This is medically necessary, she said. If she had one of the devices, Id be able to go to the bathroom. I would be able to walk around, exercise in it. I would love to be able to stand up and cook things in my microwave or on my stove.

She paused before adding, I would no longer have to look up at my son.

The ReWalk Personal 6.0 System costs, on average, $81,000. Ottobocks C-Brace is priced at $75,000. For the Indego Personal, which received FDA approval last year, it is $98,000.

About 28 percent of the more than 5.2 million Americans living with paralysis survive on an annual household income of less than $15,000, according to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. The basic expenses of living with paraplegia are, on average, $519,520 in the first year and $68,821 each subsequent year, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Furthermore, only 34.3 percent of people are employed 20 years after a paralysis-causing injury.

To date, ReWalk has sold only 118 personal devices in the United States.

Some people do get devices covered by insurance, but it can be an onerous process, as evidenced by Mark Delamere Jr. The Boston native, 19, was paralyzed in a car accident in 2013, on the third day of his freshman year of high school.

Like Barnes, he thought he would never walk again. Like Barnes, with the help of a robotic exoskeleton, he did. Unlike Barnes, though, he has an exoskeleton at home.

But for two of his teenage years, he sat in a wheelchair while his family filed claims and appealed denials.

They dont really classify these things with the purpose of you getting better, because they think the injury is never going to change, his father, Mark Sr., said.

Eventually, though, Mark Jr. got approved by his insurance company and received the ReWalk, which he uses for at-home therapy and just to walk around the house and the neighborhood, up and down the street. Asked to describe the feeling, he was at a loss for words.

Its kind of crazy, he said. It just feels kind of I dont really know. It feels so different.

But his story is rare. People are paying out of pocket or fundraising for exoskeletons, said Dan Kara, research director for robotics at ABI Research, a technology analysis and consultant company.

The price of the devices exceeds their value in the eyes of insurers, which want to be able to prove they actually improve quality of life and utility, said Howard Forman, a Yale professor of diagnostic radiology and public health. Utility means that an exoskeleton would provide a medical benefit beyond simply helping people move around and complete daily tasks.

Virginia Tech researchers found that these devices, by getting otherwise immobilized people to move around, can help them manage spasticity a continuous contraction of muscles, which can be quite painful and improve bowel function. Barnes said when she was training with the exoskeleton, tending to her bowels took about 20 minutes each day, not the customary hour.

One major concern is how relatively untested the technology is outside the controlled environment of a rehabilitation facility. Indeed, they dont always work as planned.

Stacey Kozal, a 42-year-old Ohio resident, was paralyzed from the waist down after what she said was a devastating flare-up of lupus. For more than a year, she fought with her insurance provider, Anthem, in hopes of obtaining Ottobock C-Braces. These devices have bendable knee joints equipped with sensors that measure the current position of the joint every .02 seconds, according to Ottobocks website. A built-in microprocessor adjusts ankle pressure while a hydraulic system moves the knee to help the user place her foot down in the right place.

Eventually, Anthem agreed to cover a C-Brace for each leg, which Kozal used to hike the Appalachian Trail, where limitations revealed themselves. The battery required constant recharging. Rain was problematic because the C-Brace isnt waterproof.

While she plans to wear her C-Braces around the house, shes now hiking the Pacific Crest Trail using old-fashioned braces that lock her legs in place. She uses her core, hips and upper body to swing her legs forward, and she keeps her balance with the aid of forearm crutches. C-Braces are heavier than traditional devices, so when their batteries died on the Appalachian Trail, they made it more difficult for her to move around.

Another major issue for insurers, though, is the price. But Forman said, Though these technologies are incredibly expensive now, we have all kinds of evidence that eventually they can become affordable to anyone.

Indeed, some entrepreneurs are working on cheaper solutions. Silicon Valley start-up SuitX created a lightweight model called the Phoenix. While most exoskeletons have motors powering each joint, the Phoenix simply uses two hip motors. Even so, if approved by the FDA, the device would cost $40,000, according to SuitX.

The rehabilitation marketplace is limited by the number of people who have these conditions, Kara said. The exoskeletons are basically handcrafted, which is expensive. If you could up the volume, you could lower the price.

The key would be expanding the user base. One way to do that, he noted, is to sell the devices for purposes other than rehabilitation. Warehouse workers might wear them to assist with lifting heavy loads. Some companies are already testing this idea: Lowes, for example, recently outfitted several of employees with exoskeletons as part of a pilot program.

The worldwide market for exoskeletons $97 million now is expected to grow to $1.9 billion by 2025, according to ABI Research.

Kara compared the prospects for exoskeletons to the growth of LiDAR, which uses pulsed lasers to record topographic features. For years, researchers used LiDAR to create 3-D maps of the Earth, but it was expensive. However, the rise of self-driving cars, which use the technology to navigate roadways, fostered improvements in the technology. As a result, Kara said, the price of LiDAR systems has begun to fall and is expected to drop dramatically, from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars or less.

Waiting for exoskeleton prices to drop is tremendously frustrating, Barnes said. We take so much for granted when we dont have physical problems, she said. Like just being able to reach up and grab something in my laundry cabinet without having to break my neck to get it.

She isnt ready to just accept that she and others who will face these issues might never get a sense of greater normalcy.

My biggest reason for standing up tall to them is I want to do it for all those behind me, she said. The more it gets approved, the more it cant get denied.

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Robotics helping people walk again at a hefty price Las Vegas ... - Las Vegas Review-Journal

Local FIRST Robotics Teams pose for a photo during the FIRST Robotics Championship in St. Louis, Missouri, in April.

Local FIRST Robotics Teams pose for a photo during the FIRST Robotics Championship in St. Louis, Missouri, in April.

Dow High's 'The Charge' breaks team records at FIRST Robotics Championship

Dow Highs FIRST Robotics Team 2619, The Charge, had the best performance in team history at the 2017 FIRST World Championship, which took place in late April in St. Louis, Missouri.

FIRST Steamworks is the 2017 competition, where two alliances of three robots prepare to take flight by scoring balls to build steam pressure, gathering gears to start rotors and climbing ropes to board onto the airships at the end of each match. Each team plays at least 10 qualification matches during the championship competition. At the beginning of each match, the robots are pre-programmed and run autonomously to score points for their alliance. The rest of each match is run by drive team members from each alliance team.

There were more than 400 teams at the St. Louis Championship, with 68 teams on six different competition fields. The Charge was ranked 7th at the end of qualification matches and proceeded to be the 6th place alliance captain for playoffs on the Tesla Field this was the first time that The Charge was an alliance captain at the World Championship.

What makes our robot stand out is its robustness we are able to take hits and still stand strong, something other robots lacked, said Peter Kozerski, a freshman from The Charge. Also we were able to use and integrate the new motion magic system very effectively.

The Charges alliance partners were Team 3130, The ERRORs, from St. Paul, Minnesota; Team 193, Mort Beta, from Flanders, New Jersey; and Team 4485, Tribe Tech Robotics, from Danville, Indiana. The alliance excelled, advancing through the play-offs by beating higher ranked alliances, and ending their run in the Tesla field finals finishing as finalists (2nd place on the Tesla field). The Charges previous best finish at the World Championship was in 2010 when they ended their run in the playoff quarterfinals on their field.

When asked about their secret to their success, Ethan Poupard, the Drive Team coach, mechanical co-lead, and junior from The Charge said, Open communication is a big thing. Even though I am in charge, I still need everyones (the alliances) input and opinions, and scouting for a cooperative alliance is important.

Although the competition is a focus for all levels of robotics (grade school through high school), the FIRST Robotics Championship event offers more than just robots. The Innovation Fair is packed with sponsors of FIRST that have set up booths and interactive displays.

I got to listen to a man from Bell Labs talk about voice recognition software, like Siri and making it completely portable, as in a device without connection necessary, Amelia Mylvaganam, a sophomore from The Charge, said. He used the software to recognize my friend Johns voice as a superhero and he got Batman. It was pretty cool.

There is also Scholarship Row, where different colleges and universities from around the country and world recruit future generation of students.

Its awesome! Ive been able to see colleges from Iowa to Australia there, trying to make connections that will help you in your search for college, said Emily Dean, team director and senior on The Charge.

There are also three days of conferences, where students and team mentors can attend seminars and be educated and inspired by industry leaders and other teams from around the world.

The Charge is sponsored by The Dow Chemical Co., Nexteer Automotive, Midland Public Schools, The Dow Corning Corp., Midland Steel, the Michigan Baseball Foundation and countless community boosters. Without them, The Charge wouldnt be able to create the robot that led to new adventures and records, team officials stated.

Our sponsors are fantastic because they provide us with the generous means to not only build our robot and compete, but also to reach out into our community and educate about STEM, said Mike Most, Dow High junior and electrical lead.

Other local teams competing at the FIRST Championship included Bullock Creeks 3770, BlitzCreek; Midland Highs Team 5509, Like a Boss; Calvary Baptist Academys Team 6753, RoboKings; Freelands Team 5166, Fabricators; and Saginaw Arthur Hills Team 5222, Jackbotics. All of the local teams expressed appreciation for their sponsors and the support of their schools and communities that have made this season and their trip the championship possible.

Eden Hackett, Bullock Creek team captain and junior, shared that the championship event celebrates teamwork.

Worlds is an amazing experience for FIRST Robotics teams, Hackett said. It is a celebration of everything our team has worked for all season long. It is amazing to see our team grow throughout the season together. I am so glad I had the opportunity to go to Worlds yet again this year.

Attending the conferences was one of the championship highlights for the Fabricators.

I really enjoyed the Women in STEM Discussion Panel, said Madelyn Snider, safety captain for the Fabricators. Seeing so many professional women role models inspired me to look harder at a career in medical technology. There are so many career paths open to me. I now know how FIRST can help introduce me to these fields of study.

Calvary Baptist Academys RoboKing teams favorite experiences at the FIRST Championship included meeting Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST and the inventor of the Segway, as well as competing with the best teams from other countries.

FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. It is an international robotics program that offers education and excitement for students from early elementary to high school. To learn more about FIRST, visit http://www.firstinspires.org

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Dow High's 'The Charge' breaks team records at FIRST Robotics Championship - Midland Daily News

Colin Melia's living room,dining room and garage are jammed with computers, wires, 3D printers and soldering equipment. There's even a big water tank for testing.

"I think the whole house has become the war room it's fair to say."

What it's really become is a robotics workshop, thanks to the work-to-rule campaign earlier this year by Nova Scotia teachers during their contract dispute with the government.

Whileeverything frombasketball tournamentsto school plays were sidelined by work-to-rule,Melia, a father of a student atCharlesP. Allen High School in Bedford,was determined not to let that happen to the school's robotic team.So he turned the team into a not-for-profit called Halifax Robotics.

"The robotic season is December to March and when work-to-rule came in we were fearful it would go on for a while. The teachers were really supportive, we just couldn't know how long it would go on for," he said.

Instead of heading to the school'scontruction/techroom when the bell sounds,16students in grades 10, 11 and 12 go toMelia'shouse.

"I just had to persuade my wife that it would be OK,"Meliajoked while students tinkered and worked behind him.

He spokeas students workedon fine-tuning the underwater robot that helped them win the recent regionals at the Nova Scotia Community College.

"We learned quite a bit about programming," said Yu Yang Li. "Before we didn't know that much about programming, now that I think of it."

The hard work paid off, with the groupadvancing to the MATE International ROV (remotely operated vehicle) competition in CaliforniaJune 23.The robotics team also travelled to the MATE eventlast year.

Colin Melia's living room, dining room and garage have been turned into a robotics workshop with computers, wires, 3D printers and soldering equipment. (Colleen Jones/CBC)

There are 30 teams from 16 countries looking to show that they've built the best underwater robot.

The Nova Scotia team's robothas six thrusters, four articulators and six IP cameras plus an onboard microcontroller. Almost all of the components have been built on 3D printers.

They have learned engineering, computer programming and code writing, butalso got a crash course in finding an alternative way to keep on going when a contract dispute looked like it was going to derail their entire robotic season.

When the team returns from California, Melia and his family might be able to eat at their dining room table again. Until then, it remains the headquarters for Halifax Robotics.

Original post:

How CP Allen's robotics club survived work-to-rule - CBC.ca

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'Stealth mode' robotics firm NextDroid might be developing self-driving Cadillac in Pittsburgh - Tribune-Review

Ashley Barnes was 35 years old when doctors told her she would never walk again.

A botched spinal procedure in 2014 paralyzed her from the waist down. The Tyler, Tex., resident had been an avid runner, clocking six miles daily when not home with her then-9-year-old autistic son, whom she raised alone. Life in a wheelchair was not an option.

"I needed to be the best mom I could be," Barnes said. "I needed to be up and moving."

So she threw herself into physical therapy, convinced she would one day run again. Soon she realized that wasn't a reality.

Although she wore a brave face, "I would save my moments of crying for my room," she said.

About a year later, hope resurfaced when she learned of the ReWalk system, a battery-powered robotic exoskeleton that attaches to the legs and lower back. It contains motors at the knee and hip joints and sensors to help it adjust with each footfall. While wearing the device and holding two forearm crutches, someone with complete lower-limb paralysis can walk.

Rehabilitation centers often employ such devices in physical therapy, which is how Barnes first encountered one at the Baylor Tom Landry Center, a rehab clinic in Dallas. After seven months without being able to stand, she did. Then she took a step as she began to learn how to walk again.

In 2014, the ReWalk system became the first personal robotic exoskeleton approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The following year, the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to cover the exoskeletons for qualifying vets. Meanwhile, several companies began touting similar devices. For example, Ekso makes units used to rehabilitate people after spinal cord injury or stroke.

Health insurers, however, generally don't cover the expensive equipment.

After working with the ReWalk system at her rehab center, Barnes, who uses a wheelchair at home to get around, decided she wanted one of her own. But Tricare, her insurer, denied the request.

In a statement, Tricare said it "does not cover these devices for use on a personal basis due to concerns with their safety and efficacy. This is particularly important due to the vulnerability of paralyzed users in the event of a fall."

Two years and countless no's later, Barnes still doesn't have one because, according to Tricare, it isn't "medically necessary."

Barnes strongly disagrees.

"This is medically necessary," she said. If she had one of the devices, "I'd be able to go to the bathroom. I would be able to walk around, exercise in it. I would love to be able to stand up and cook things in my microwave or on my stove."

She paused before adding, "I would no longer have to look up at my son."

- - -

The ReWalk Personal 6.0 System costs, on average, $81,000. Ottobock's C-Brace is priced at $75,000. For the Indego Personal, which received FDA approval last year, it is $98,000.

About 28 percent of the more than 5.2 million Americans living with paralysis survive on an annual household income of less than $15,000, according to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. The basic expenses of living with paraplegia are, on average, $519,520 in the first year and $68,821 each subsequent year, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Furthermore, only 34.3 percent of people are employed 20 years after a paralysis-causing injury.

To date, ReWalk has sold only 118 personal devices in the United States.

Some people do get devices covered by insurance, but it can be an onerous process, as evidenced by Mark Delamere Jr. The Boston native, 19, was paralyzed in a car accident in 2013, on the third day of his freshman year of high school.

Like Barnes, he thought he would never walk again. Like Barnes, with the help of a robotic exoskeleton, he did. Unlike Barnes, though, he has an exoskeleton at home.

But for two of his teenage years, he sat in a wheelchair while his family filed claims and appealed denials.

"They don't really classify these things with the purpose of you getting better, because they think the injury is never going to change," his father, Mark Sr., said.

Eventually, though, Mark Jr. got approved by his insurance company and received the ReWalk, which he uses for at-home therapy and just to "walk around the house and the neighborhood, up and down the street." Asked to describe the feeling, he was at a loss for words.

"It's kind of crazy," he said. "It just feels kind of I don't really know. It feels so different."

- - -

But his story is rare. "People are paying out of pocket or fundraising" for exoskeletons, said Dan Kara, research director for robotics at ABI Research, a technology analysis and consultant company.

The price of the devices exceeds their value in the eyes of insurers, which "want to be able to prove they actually improve quality of life and utility," said Howard Forman, a Yale professor of diagnostic radiology and public health. "Utility" means that an exoskeleton would provide a medical benefit beyond simply helping people move around and complete daily tasks.

Virginia Tech researchers found that these devices, by getting otherwise immobilized people to move around, can help them manage spasticity a continuous contraction of muscles, which can be quite painful and improve bowel function. Barnes said when she was training with the exoskeleton, tending to her bowels took about 20 minutes each day, not the customary hour.

One major concern is how relatively untested the technology is outside the controlled environment of a rehabilitation facility. Indeed, they don't always work as planned.

Stacey Kozal, a 42-year-old Ohio resident, was paralyzed from the waist down after what she said was a devastating flare-up of lupus. For more than a year, she fought with her insurance provider, Anthem, in hopes of obtaining Ottobock C-Braces. These devices have bendable knee joints equipped with sensors that "measure the current position of the joint every .02 seconds," according to Ottobock's website. A built-in microprocessor adjusts ankle pressure while a hydraulic system moves the knee to help the user place her foot down in the right place.

Eventually, Anthem agreed to cover a C-Brace for each leg, which Kozal used to hike the Appalachian Trail, where limitations revealed themselves. The battery required constant recharging. Rain was problematic because the C-Brace isn't waterproof.

While she plans to wear her C-Braces around the house, she's now hiking the Pacific Crest Trail using old-fashioned braces that lock her legs in place. She uses her core, hips and upper body to swing her legs forward, and she keeps her balance with the aid of forearm crutches. C-Braces are heavier than traditional devices, so when their batteries died on the Appalachian Trail, they made it more difficult for her to move around.

Another major issue for insurers, though, is the price. But Forman said, "Though these technologies are incredibly expensive now, we have all kinds of evidence that eventually ... they can become affordable to anyone."

Indeed, some entrepreneurs are working on cheaper solutions. Silicon Valley start-up SuitX created a lightweight model called the Phoenix. While most exoskeletons have motors powering each joint, the Phoenix simply uses two hip motors. Even so, if approved by the FDA, the device would cost $40,000, according to SuitX.

"The rehabilitation marketplace is limited by the number of people who have these conditions," Kara said. The exoskeletons are "basically handcrafted, which is expensive. If you could up the volume, you could lower the price."

The key would be expanding the user base. One way to do that, he noted, is to sell the devices for purposes other than rehabilitation. Warehouse workers might wear them to assist with lifting heavy loads. Some companies are already testing this idea: Lowe's, for example, recently outfitted several of employees with exoskeletons as part of a pilot program.

The worldwide market for exoskeletons $97 million now is expected to grow to $1.9 billion by 2025, according to ABI Research.

Kara compared the prospects for exoskeletons to the growth of LiDAR, which uses pulsed lasers to record topographic features. For years, researchers used LiDAR to create 3-D maps of the Earth, but it was expensive. However, the rise of self-driving cars, which use the technology to navigate roadways, fostered improvements in the technology. As a result, Kara said, the price of LiDAR systems has begun to fall and is "expected to drop dramatically, from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars or less."

Waiting for exoskeleton prices to drop is tremendously frustrating, Barnes said. "We take so much for granted when we don't have physical problems," she said. "Like just being able to reach up and grab something in my laundry cabinet without having to break my neck to get it."

She isn't ready to just accept that she and others who will face these issues might never get a sense of greater normalcy.

"My biggest reason for standing up tall to them is I want to do it for all those behind me," she said. "The more it gets approved, the more it can't get denied."

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Robotics are helping paralyzed people walk again, but the price tag ... - Chicago Tribune