Could this keep us more mobile for longer?
Researchers have built a robotic tail that they believe will keep older people mobile for longer. And no, it’s not an April Fools’ Day joke.
The tail, according to a Reuters report on abc.net.au, is being developed by a research team at Keio University in Japan, to help unsteady older people keep their balance.
“The tail keeps balance like a pendulum,” says Junichi Nabeshima, a graduate student and researcher at the university's Embodied Media Project.
“When a human tilts their body one way, the tail moves in the opposite direction.”
The one metre tail, dubbed Arque, uses four artificial muscles and compressed air to move in eight directions. It mimics the tails of animals such as cheetahs that help them maintain balance while running and climbing.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for one to hit the stores. Mr Nabeshima says it will remain in the lab for now as researchers look for ways to make it more flexible.
Humans are like gibbons, they have tails but lose them before birth, that is why we haave tail bones. Billions of years ago, we did have tails. we don;t need themnow cos we walk upright.
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-don-t-humans-have-tails
What a brilliant bit of technology .... should be of benefit to the elderly and disabled.