BENGALURU: Japanese robotics company and Malaysian social security organisation SOCSO look to enter Indian Cybernics industry (which combines cyberspace and physical space) by 2020. As a combined effort with physiotherapists and the government, they want to setup Neuro HALFIT Training Rehabilitation Centres with various robotics equipment to treat patients of paralysis due to brain and spinal cord injuries.
So far there are signs of setting up five centres across the country, said an official from Malaysia’s Opto Motion, who is trying to collaborate with Indian physiotherapists to bring the Japanese technology to India. The team, which spoke to TNIE on the sidelines of the launch of ‘HAL robotic exoskeleton suit’ in Bengaluru on Sunday, was optimistic about setting up a centre in collaboration with the government in Bengaluru.
The HAL Robot Suit is a Hybrid Assistive Limb which works on the basis of the wearer’s thoughts. With the help of a sensor, it taps the bioelectric potential signal or the signal which leaks into the body surface when a signal is transmitted from the brain to the muscles through the nerves. Thereby making it different from the other suits which work when buttons are pressed on a control system.
If Bengaluru were to set up a centre, the technology would be provided by Japan’s Cyberdyne Inc, a company that researches and develops equipment and systems in treatment devices to improve and regenerate the brain-neuro-physical functions. Malaysia’s SOCSO or organisation Pertubuhan Keselamatan Sosial (PERKESO), a statutory body under the Ministry of Human Resources Malaysia, will help the government take a relook at its social security approach to persons with disabilities -- by bringing together various stakeholders like the neurosurgeons, physicians, occupational therapists in a bio-psycho-social approach.
“From tax eaters to tax payers,” said Yoshihiro Yasunaga , Director, General Manager of Sales Department, USCPA, who represented Cyberdyne.
Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan assured full support to the initiative and said he “will mobilise organisations to fund the project”