Kinoped
A lower-extremity exercise robot for assessment, rehabilitation, and performance.
Kinoped is a robotic exoskeleton for the legs: seven motors on each leg, three at the hip, one at the knee, and three at the ankle, giving seven degrees of freedom per leg. Lying supine, the user walks, runs, or climbs while the footplates recreate the ground reaction forces of real movement. It can move the user, resist the user, or guide and adjust between the two.
On every step it records range of motion, force, torque, position, velocity, and acceleration across all seven axes of each leg, and KinoStudio, its software, lets a researcher design and run protocols across networked machines. Peak torque is 450 newton-metres; the leg sections adjust to fit 95 percent of adults.
The machine is the work of 32 years and eight versions. Dan Niccum began a passive-motion mobility system in California in the 1990s while Andre developed the StepChallenger hip rehabilitation device in Quebec; they joined forces in the 2010s. It is made by Innovations Health Devices, LLC, which holds two granted U.S. patents on the device, and it made its public debut at the 10th World Congress of Biomechanics in Vancouver in July 2026.