One big, robotic foot and then the other; that's how a man wearing a clunky-looking exoskeleton makes his way across the room. The machine's motors are noisy and its movements are painfully slow, but these details seem to fade into the background when you realize how the man is controlling the cumbersome contraption: He's doing it with his mind.
The exoskeleton — a robotic device that fits around the man's hips and legs — is part of a new technology being developed by researchers in Germany and Korea. The other part is a dark cap on the man's head, covered with electrodes that facilitate the connection between his brain and the machine.
The man wearing the exoskeleton in the experiment can walk on his own (he's one of the participants in the researchers' newly published study), but the scientists think their new mind-controlled device could one day be used by people who can't walk — such as those who have suffered severe spinal cord injuries, or people with neurodegenerative diseases, like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). [Bionic Humans: Top 10 Technologies]
Lots of researchers are working to develop technologies that help people regain control over their movements through a combination of robotics and brainpower (formally known as brain-computer interface control systems).