Cheng Hong, Director of the Robotics Research Center at UESTC: Using Technology to Help Disabled Elderly People Achieve True Human-Machine Collaboration

“My original intention in developing exoskeleton robots was simple: I am from Sichuan,” said Cheng Hong, Director of the Robotics Research Center at UESTC and Director of the Engineering Research Center for Human-Machine Intelligent Technology and Systems under the Ministry of Education. On the evening of August 27, he and Niu Yu delivered a speech titled “How the New Steel Was Tempered” at the “Future Night” event of the 2024 China Cyber Civilization Conference.

Cheng said that after the 2008 earthquake, he returned from studying in the United States and visited the Sichuan Bayi Rehabilitation Center, where he met more than 100 people with disabilities who could not stand. One young girl said nothing and only looked at him with despair. At that moment, he decided that his lifelong work must help people with disabilities.

“Fourteen years have passed, and our exoskeleton has evolved to the sixth generation. Users can now not only stand and walk, but also climb slopes and stairs. But I can never forget that girl’s despairing look. There is still much more we should do,” Cheng said. He also shared the story of Huang Man, a recipient of a first-class merit award from the Ministry of Public Security, who stood again with help from Cheng’s team.

Due to high-level paraplegia, Huang had lost sensation below the neck for 12 years. Facing such a brave officer enduring severe pain, Cheng’s team chose to challenge a technology that had not been practically applied before: combining brain-electrical and muscle-electrical signals. Cheng said the approach was advanced and extremely difficult, with a success rate close to zero, but the team gave its full support. When Huang stood again after 12 years and took one step after another, the audience was moved to tears.

Cheng said Huang’s constant smile deeply touched the team. They believed that someone who loves life so deeply deserves an extra blessing from fate.

Before the performance, Cheng told reporters that technology has always driven major social progress and improved people’s lives. He focused his speech on how technological light changes the lives of people with disabilities. “People with disabilities simply have more special needs than others, and the light of technology shines on all of us,” he said. Cheng believes the next two or three decades will be an era of artificial intelligence, and that this technological light will bring enormous changes to life.

So far, Cheng’s team’s exoskeleton robots have been used in more than 100 hospitals. He hopes they will be applied in more clinical treatment scenarios and help disabled elderly people achieve true “human-machine dancing.”

Original link: https://www.scpublic.cn/news/getNewsDatail?id=792291