June 4, 2002	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 22,1423

LONDON, June 3: Elderly people might one day be able to throw away their walking frames and dress in inflatable muscle suits which look like a pneumatic diving suit, New Scientist magazine reported.

Designer Hiroshi Kobayashi, Japanese roboticist from the Science University of Tokyo, hopes elderly people wearing the “Michelin Man” outfits will become a common sight in the high street.

The outside of the Lycra suit is covered in pairs of inflatable muscles which assist the wearer’s real muscles, the magazine reported. When they inflate, they help the wearer move the limbs with greater strength and stability.

The power comes from compressed air stored in a number of small canisters distributed about the suit or a single tank carried on the back. Each artificial muscle has an inflatable rubber tube surrounded by a flexible metal mesh connected to joints on the suit at each end.—dpa