A new Russian production site is breaking ground outside Nizhny Novgorod in the mid-Volga region. Rehab Technologies, a subsidiary of a large Russian company called GK Madin, is launching serial manufacture of robotized exoskeletons under the E-Helper brand to step up convalescence of patients with the temporary loss of lower extremities’ locomotion function, the regional business daily Delovoy Kvartal reported.

The developer hopes the exoskeletons will assist patients who have wholly lost the ability to move around on their own (after stroke, for example) in standing up, sitting down, walking, and going up and down the stairs completely unaided. The new solution can reportedly hold a patient who weighs up to 110kg.

“The exoskeletons come in two options. There is one for individuals and the other for medical facilities, the latter having an array of settings for various widths and lengths of the hip, spine widths, and ankle/foot lengths. There are three devices to control the exoskeleton. The master one is a tablet where a physician enters a patient’s individual characteristics; the doctor then uses the tablet to check the speed of walking comfort for the patient, and how long his stride should be. The processed data is then sent to two slave devices controlled by the patient himself,” said Evgeny Kryukov who is in charge of the electronic part of the project.

Regional medical facilities may expect to receive an inaugural batch of 11 exoskeletons in the coming spring.