Exoskeleton increases human ability to super being status, we have seen in movies and Tom Cruise looked cool fighting aliens in Edge of Tomorrow. Today that fiction is close to reality with collaborative efforts between Panasonic and ATOUN Inc. who specialise in robotics.

Testing a Power Assist Suit at a Para Powerlifting competition, Panasonic demonstrated the suit worn by staffs assisting in placing and removing the weight plates from the bars showing how the lighten load is handled and to study the feasibility of using the suit at actual sports competitions.

Para Powerlifting is a bench press competition for athletes with impairment in the lower limbs. Men and women both complete in 10 different weight classes – men’s ranging from 49kg to 107+kg and women’s from 41kg to 86+kg. And adjustment of the plates on the bar in accordance to weight classes is carried out by the competition staff. Plates used in official competitions weigh from 10 to 50kg each. Because each athlete has 3 attempts, the staff may end up lifting the plates up off the ground, placing them on the bar, removing them and putting them back down again more than 120 times during the competition, if, for example, there are 40 participating athletes.

With that in mind, Panasonic and ATOUN focused on the potential of the Power Assist Suit in reducing the impact on the muscles and hips of the competition staff. This demonstration experiment was organized with the cooperation of the Japanese Para Powerlifting Federation.