HAL Lumbar Type for Well-being (BB04)
Cyberdyne · Japan · 2019
Waist-worn Cyberdyne exoskeleton designed to be used from both sides of a care situation: worn by a carer it takes load off the lower back during lifting, worn by the person being cared for it assists their own legs in standing up.
HAL Lumbar Type for Well-being, sold under the model code BB04, is the version of Cyberdyne's waist exoskeleton aimed at nursing and elderly care rather than at factory work or hospital treatment. The manufacturer describes it as a device with two roles in the same room: worn by a caregiver it reduces the load on the lumbar spine during transfers and repositioning, and worn by a care-receiver it assists weakened legs during sit-to-stand training, with the aim of keeping the person independent for longer. The device is small by the standards of the HAL family: 3.1 kg including the battery, with hip joints assisting through 30 degrees of extension and 130 degrees of flexion. Cyberdyne supplies three frame sizes, and the smallest is genuinely small — the XS frame is specified for wearers roughly 100 to 140 cm tall and 20 to 40 kg, which puts children and very small adults inside the fitting range. Ingress protection is rated IP54 and the maker specifically states that the splash-resistant construction lets a carer keep the unit on while assisting with bathing. The technically interesting part is how the machine is driven. Classic HAL works from bio-electrical signals: electrodes on the skin pick up the faint traces of the brain's commands to the muscles, and the motors move in step with the wearer's intention. BB04 keeps that Hybrid Mode, but adds a second one — Cybernics Autonomous Control, which runs without attaching any electrodes at all. Cyberdyne's argument is practical rather than scientific: a caregiver moving between rooms will not stop to place sensors on their own skin, and in the electrode-free mode the device can be put on in under ten seconds. Cyberdyne does not rent this product to private individuals; it is sold and leased to care facilities and employers. The company does not publish a battery capacity, an assist force figure or a run time for this model, so those fields are left empty here rather than filled from second-hand sources.
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