The Archelis is a ‘wearable chair’ designed for professionals who cannot afford to take a seat, unless they take it along with them, like surgeons working around an operating table.

Consider any job that involves a lot of standing or walking, like a barista at a coffee shop or bartender at the pub or painter at his easel. Even an everyday commuter on the busy subway could benefit.

The device wraps around a user’s legs, looking like an integrated pair of braces, but locking into position to provide support on demand, even while the user is effectively half-standing.

There are a lot of potential other applications as well, for elderly or infirm persons, but also perhaps, as they are further refined (less bulky), simply for everyday use, letting us all walk around and ‘sit’ whenever we want.

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A wearable robotic framework, powered by a battery and available for around $40K, the Suit X is surprisingly unassuming for something that can allow people paralyzed from the waist down to walk again.

Small motors translate body motions and hand controls to hips and knees, allowing users to move at over a mile per hour. Moreover, the Suit X is just 27 points, very light and cheap as medical exoskeletons go, with modular adjustments enabling wearers to customize it for different conditions. A battery pack gives the device an impressive eight hours of run time, letting it be used all day.

Developed by the Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, the main goal of its maker was to create something to help children with neurological disorders who may lose mobility without regular walking, assisted by a device like this. As costs come down, exoskeletons become increasingly price-competitive with wheelchairs, putting them in reach for people who could not otherwise afford them, and reasonable options for insurance companies. Ease of putting it on and taking it off is also a key factor, as well as noise reduction, all of which make this an increasingly appealing alternative to chairs on wheels.

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Designed to make walking with mobility assistance less painful and more comfortable, these crutches employs flexible armbands that are easier to hold in place and distribute weight to parts of the body more capable of carrying it.

Users are are not locked or strapped into the staffs but rather slipped into place; they also make it easy for people to go into a hands-free mode for holding phones, drinks or other objects as well as opening doors.

Flexible straps can be moved along the length of the cradle, customized to user preference. Lifting arms and shifting positions is also made easy. None of this setup requires any kind of specialized tools or complex procedures for operation – the focus with each component, and the whole, is on usability and flexibility of use.

More from the makers: “the ‘m+d crutch’ comes with a standard foot designed to absorb some of the shock of each step. the tread and material flexibility allow the crutch’s foot to conform to the ground and grip it to prevent slipping.”

“The standard foot can be easily removed and replaced with other feet designed for various terrains and activities. alternative feet will be available in the future.”

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In addition to an array of other useful features, this futuristic mobility-aiding cane contains a camera and facial recognition software to help the visually impaired pick friendly faces out of the crowd.

The cane is a widely-recognized and frequently-used staple for those who cannot see well or at all, and thus an idea vessel to enhance with GPS and other computer-driven aids. The device is being designed by Waheed Rafiq, Steve Adigbo, and Richard Howlett, researchers at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom, and still just a prototype at this point.

In terms of face-seeing software: the built-in camera takes continuous images, searches for faces, then scans them against a database tied to your social profiles or other uploaded images (you can also use the cane itself to take new photos for the database). When a match is found, the user is notified via bone-conduction earpiece designed to cut down on auditory distractions.

The long-term vision is a commercial version but that is still a ways off. The goal is also to include only what is necessary in the cane, perhaps primarily hardware, leaving the heavy lifting to modular software components or third-party devices already in hand (like mobile phones). Other smart canes are also in development, some being marketed for as little as $40, but with far fewer features.

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The past two decades have brought about some incredible – and very expensive – advances in prosthetic limb technology. A prosthetic leg can now contain microprocessors, gyroscopes, and hydraulics to give the amputee a completely natural gait. In India and other developing nations, having a leg amputated usually means a lifetime with a stiff, unmoving prosthetic. MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering Amos Winter wants to bring a low-tech solution to people in developing countries who don’t have $50,000 to spend on a top-of-the-line leg.

Winter and his associates published a paper detailing their research on the ideal torque that a prosthetic leg should produce in order to replicate the gait of a natural knee. Working off of that research, the team was able to build a prototype of a working prosthetic leg that uses simple elements like springs and dampers instead of high-tech electronic components.

Their low-tech prototype uses a spring to slightly bend the “knee” as the leg moves; two dampers stop the leg from swinging backward and slow it down during its forward movement just before the heel hits the ground. Using this simple system, the prosthetic leg allows for a much more natural gait than the typical non-dynamic prosthetic leg. The researchers have begun testing their invention with above-the-knee amputees in India and hope that, once refined, their prosthesis will cost only a few hundred dollars.

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