Although motorized exoskeletons automatically help move the wearer's legs as they walk along level ground, most have to be manually switched over to different modes for more complicated tasks, such as stepping over or around obstacles.

"That can be inconvenient and cognitively demanding," says Brokoslaw Laschowski, an engineering PhD candidate who is also head of the ExoNet project at Canada's University of Waterloo. "Every time you want to perform a new locomotor activity, you have to stop, take out your smartphone and select the desired mode."

Once this phase of the project has been completed, the next step will involve getting the software to activate the exoskeleton, so that it moves the user accordingly without their having to tell it to do so.

"Our control approach wouldn’t necessarily require human thought," says Laschowski. "Similar to autonomous cars that drive themselves, we’re designing autonomous exoskeletons that walk for themselves."

According to newatlas.com