Assistance robots are the future for people who need daily care due to limited mobility or being wheelchair-bound. Current solutions of attaching robotic arms to motorized wheelchairs only provide limited additional mobility at the cost of increased size. We present a mouth joystick control interface, augmented with voice commands, for an independent quadrupedal assistance robot with an arm. We validate and showcase our system in the Cybathlon Challenges February 2024 Assistance Robot Race, where we solve four everyday tasks in record time, winning first place. Our system remains generic and sets the basis for a platform that could help and provide independence in the everyday lives of people in wheelchairs.

In addition to the Olympics and Paralympics, there's another epic celebration of human fortitude: The Cybathlon, otherwise known as the Cyborg Olympics. According to Max Ortiz-Catalan, a bionics engineer at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, it's "the Olympics for cyborgs, where technologies are used to overcome disabilities." Unlike the other events, the Cybathlon commemorates new prosthetic technologies and runs timed competitions ranging from biking to hanging laundry. Hanging up T-shirts while wearing an arm prosthesis is notably difficult. These prostheses can be bulky and hard to maneuver, with a limited range of motion.

Involving potential users of a particular technology in the research and development (R&D) process is a very powerful way to maximise success when such technology is deployed in the real world. In addition, this can speed up the R&D process because the researchers' perspective to the problem is combined with that of end-users. The non- profit project CYBATHLON was created by ETH Zurich as a way to advance R&D of assistive technology through competitions that involve developers, people with disabilities, and the general public. This 13th and 14th of November, the CYBATHLON 2020 edition is taking place. The event will be live-streamed, and it is completely open to the public.

As a member of the Royal Society's Working Group on Machine Learning, Dr. Hauert is an expert in science communication. As a frequent speaker on the future of robotics, Hauert explains how robots are game-changers, but not in the way we think. Robots aren't going to replace humans; they're going to make our jobs much more humane. Difficult, demeaning, demanding, dangerous, dull--these are the jobs that robots will be taking. Productivity is one of the primary benefits of robotics in the workplace. In Europe, the goal is to attain a 20 percent increase in productivity by 2020. Central to achieving this is the exploration and use of robotics in the workplace.

Noninvasive brain–computer interface (BCI) systems can restore functions lost to disability -- allowing for spontaneous, direct brain control of external devices without the risks associated with surgical implantation of neural interfaces. But as machine-learning algorithms have become faster and more powerful, researchers have mostly focused on increasing performance by optimizing pattern-recognition algorithms. But what about letting patients actively participate with AI in improving performance? To test that idea, researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), based in Geneva, Switzerland, conducted research using "mutual learning" between computer and humans -- two severely impaired (tetraplegic) participants with chronic spinal cord injury. The goal: win a live virtual racing game at an international event.

Silke Pan of Team PolyWalk EPFL in the powered exoskeleton race. Most physical competitions are based around the idea of participants pushing themselves physically, demonstrating to the world that they are the fastest, strongest, or otherwise physically gifted. For those with significant physical disabilities or injuries, however, simply accomplishing basic everyday tasks can be an Olympic-level feat. That's where Cybathlon, a new competition designed to promote innovative assistive devices, may accomplish two goals: providing a competitive forum for disabled athletes, and highlighting the specific advances that are being made in robotic assistive aids designed to help those with significant physical disabilities. Conceived and developed by Switzerland's ETH Zurich (a science and research university) and National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics professor Robert Riener, the first iteration of Cybathlon took place last October in Zurich.

"We call them'flourishes'," says Aldo Faisal. "Kevin has this flourish where, because he can rotate his wrist 360-degrees either way, when he reaches for or passes you stuff he will add this flourish just for the fun of it. There's no need for him to do it, but he does it anyway. It's like if you pick up your teacup and you stretch out your pinkie finger… He doesn't think about it: he just does it." Faisal, senior lecturer in Neurotechnology at Imperial College London, is talking to WIRED about one of his'Pilots': the term given to disabled athletes taking part in the 2016 Cybathlon in Switzerland.

Pilot Matt Standridge will compete in the Cybathlon using an exoskeleton from the University of Houston's Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface Systems Laboratory designed to help people with paraplegia to walk. Vance Bergeron was once an amateur cyclist who rode 7,000 kilometres per year -- much of it on steep climbs in the Alps. But in February 2013, as the 50-year-old chemical engineer was biking to work at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyons, France, he was hit by a car. The impact sent him flying through the air and onto his head, breaking his neck. When he woke, he learnt that he would never again move his legs on his own, and would have only limited use of his arms.

Caption: Caption: In the Cybathlon, pilots with complete spinal cord injuries take part in a bike race with the help of functional electrical stimulation.ETH Zurich/Alessandro Della Bella Caption: Caption: In this team event, competitors use powered arm prosthesis to complete a series of tasks. Caption: Caption: Team Avalanche competes in the powered wheelchair race.ETH Zürich/Alessandro Della Bella Caption: Caption: Team Mahidol competes in the computer interface race.ETH Zürich/Nicola Pitaro Caption: Caption: Team Imperial GBR competes in the powered arm prosthesis race.ETH Zürich/Nicola Pitaro Caption: Caption: Team OssurPowerKnee competes in the powered leg prosthesis race.ETH Zürich/Nicola Pitaro Caption: Caption: A participant with limited mobility can climb steps with the help of an exoskeleton.ETH Zurich/Alessandro Della Bella Caption: Caption: Team Meltin competes in the functional electrical stimulation bike race.ETH Zurich/Nicola Pitaro Caption: Caption: Team Varileg competes in teh powered exoskeleton race.ETH Zürich/Alessandro Della Bella Caption: Caption: A competitor in the powered leg prosthesis race.ETH Zürich/Alessandro Della Bella In pop culture, cyborgs can fly, throw cars, and blow up buildings. Nobody did any of those things at the world's first-ever cyborg Olympics--the Cybathlon in Zurich, Switzerland, held earlier this month--but the action was just as miraculous for a different reason. Using the latest bionic technology, disabled competitors paired up with prosthetics developers to accomplish tasks ranging from bread slicing to bike racing. Of the 59 teams, these three triumphed and scored top marks.

Andre van Rüschen slowly climbed a five-step ramp at the end of his race. With a black processor strapped to his back and leg supports on either side of his lower limbs, he stayed focused on the body-machine coordination that was keeping him upright. He had walked over a wooden slope, criss-crossed bright yellow bars and tried to step on gray discs that were placed irregularly on the floor. Now, standing atop the last obstacle in the exoskeleton race, he took a moment to pause and look up at his opponent on the adjacent track. They were both on the ramp, going head-to-head at the world's first Cybathlon, a sporting competition designed for people with severe disabilities.