Paraplegic Brazilian teen to kick football at WC opener using mind-controlled exoskeleton

A paraplegic Brazilian teen will reportedly don a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton and a special 3-D printed helmet to demonstrate a football kick during the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup 2014, which will begin on June 16.

The complex and conspicuous robotic suit built from lightweight alloys and powered by hydraulics, is the culmination of years of work by an international team of scientists and engineers working on a project called 'Walk Again'.

According to TechCrunh, the exoskeleton is finally coming together after it was first announced in January and should be ready for next month's kick-off in Brazil.

The kick is aimed to be one of the first massively public demonstrations of a human controlling a robot with neural signals.

The 'Walk Again' Project is a nonprofit, international collaboration among the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering, the Technical University of Munich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal in Brazil, The University of California, Davis, The University of Kentucky, and Regis Kopper of The Duke immersive Virtual Environment.

The CSU researchers, led by David Prawel, have reportedly built the helmet while other teams have built the exoskeleton and the neuro interface for the robot.

They have used a 3D printer to extrude a foam structure that is soft and squishy and that will be able to keep the electrodes in place while in motion, the report added.

The kicker will also train in a VR environment to get used to walking with their new nervous system, the report further added.