Walking Exoskeleton History and Where ABB Fits

A walking exoskeleton is a powered frame or soft suit worn on the legs that adds force at the hip, knee or ankle while you walk. For most of its history it was a hospital device for people who could not walk at all. In 2026 that began to shift. Rental exoskeletons now wait in lockers at the foot of Chinese mountains, and a TV maker is testing one for older people climbing stairs at home. This post covers where walking exoskeletons came from, what is on sale and in testing now, how ABB robots could fit into building them, and what still stands in the way.

A man walks in an EksoNR robotic exoskeleton while a therapist supports him from behind. Photo: AriceEB / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From Yagn's bow springs to suits that let paraplegics stand

The idea is older than the electric motor in most homes. Around 1890 the Russian engineer Nicholas Yagn patented an "apparatus for facilitating walking, running and jumping" in the United States. His drawings show long bow springs running from the waist to the feet on both sides of the body, meant to store energy as the wearer stepped and give it back on the push off. There was no motor and no control. It was a passive frame, and there is no record that it helped anyone walk farther, but the shape of a modern leg exoskeleton is already there on the page.

Drawing from Nicholas Yagn's US patent 420,178 of 1890, an apparatus for facilitating walking, running and jumping. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Powered versions came out of military research. In the 1960s General Electric and the US armed forces built Hardiman, a 680 kg suit meant to multiply the wearer's strength, which never worked safely with a person inside. Later military programmes produced lighter load carrying legs such as the HULC, tested by the US Army around 2011. In Japan, Cyberdyne and the University of Tsukuba developed the HAL suit, which reads electrical signals from the wearer's skin to time the help it gives at the hip and knee.

A soldier wears the HULC load carrying leg exoskeleton for US Army officers, 2011. Photo: U.S. Army RDECOM / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The medical breakthrough came from Israel. Amit Goffer designed ReWalk in Yokneam, the first clinical trial ran at MossRehab in Philadelphia in 2009, and the FDA allowed it in US hospitals in 2011. In June 2014 the FDA cleared ReWalk for use at home and in public, which made it the first exoskeleton a paraplegic person could take home in the US. Ekso Bionics followed with its own rehabilitation suits. The early suits were heavy and the wearer still needed crutches, yet they let people with spinal cord injuries stand up, walk and climb stairs again.

The HAL powered leg suit from Cyberdyne and the University of Tsukuba on display in 2010. Photo: Yuichiro C. Katsumoto / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Hiking rentals, soft suits and a TV maker's walking aid

Soft suits were the next step. At Harvard's Wyss Institute, researchers built a lower body exosuit from textiles, small actuators and a battery, which pulls on the ankle at the right moment in each stride. ReWalk licensed it in 2016, and in 2019 its commercial version, ReStore, received a CE mark and FDA clearance for stroke rehabilitation clinics. Our earlier post on rehabilitation robot therapy covers that clinical side. The newer market is people who can already walk and simply want help.

Researchers fit a soft exosuit to a soldier's legs during a US Army evaluation of DARPA's exosuit in 2014. Photo: U.S. Army RDECOM / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

China Daily reported in late September 2026 that exoskeleton rental stations are spreading at scenic spots, including Changbai Mountain, the Badaling section of the Great Wall, Mount Tai and Mount Hua, for 80 to 200 yuan a rental. One 52 year old hiker paid 88 yuan, took a device from a locker and climbed more than 1,400 steps to Tianchi Lake. The piece names Hypershell, whose X series went into mass production in 2024, and ULS Robotics, which launched its 5.68 pound Viatrix X on 22 September. Pandaily reported on 13 October that a team inside Skyworth is testing an exoskeleton to help older people walk, stand up and climb stairs.

A robotic gait trainer demonstrated at the Palon ReWalk neuro rehabilitation centre in Guwahati, India, 2026. Photo: Shefali.assam / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB does not make walking exoskeletons, and it has announced no exoskeleton customer. Where its robots could fit is the factory. A suit like this is a small product built from motors, gearboxes, sensors and battery packs, the kind of assembly ABB's dual arm YuMi IRB 14000, the single arm YuMi IRB 14050 and the GoFa CRB 15000 cobot already do in electronics and medical device plants. A GoFa could also run endurance tests, flexing a hip joint thousands of times. None of this has been announced; it is how existing ABB robots could be used. Cells like these are usually planned in RobotStudio first.

ABB's dual arm YuMi assembling small parts beside a lab worker. Photo: ABB

What walking exoskeletons still have to prove

The next few years will be about price and weight. China Daily quotes ULS Robotics saying that as core parts reach mass production, prices for consumer exoskeletons have fallen into a range ordinary buyers can accept. For the home, the clearest use is the one Skyworth is testing: an older person who can still walk but struggles with stairs in a building without a lift. That is a narrower job than a humanoid robot helping around the house, and it is easier to test.

A single arm YuMi cobot at work on GE Healthcare's prototype assembly line. Photo: ABB

A walking exoskeleton pushes on a human joint, so a wrong push at the wrong moment can cause a fall. Medical suits go through regulators like the FDA. Consumer hiking suits sold for fitness do not face the same tests, and buyers have little independent data on how they behave on wet rock or on a long descent. Fit is another issue, because legs and gaits differ, and a suit tuned for one person can feel wrong on the next.

A robotic leg exoskeleton on display beside rocket models at an exhibition, 2013. Photo: Paulo O / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

For factories the questions are different. If consumer demand grows as fast as the rental stations suggest, makers will need to build many small, precise actuators at low cost and test every unit before it reaches someone's knee. Screwdriving, gluing and end of line testing are jobs factory robots already do every day. Our post on exoskeletons for heavy lifting covers the industrial suits that came first. The walking kind still has to prove that people will wear it for a whole day and come back for more.

A GoFa cobot at ABB's healthcare research hub. Photo: ABB

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