Toyota has unveiled its ambitions for hi-tech health care, displaying experimental robots which the firm says can lift disabled patients from their hospital beds or help them walk.
The car maker aims to commercialise products such as its "independent walk assist" device sometime after 2013 - seeking to position itself in an industry with great potential in Japan, one of the world's most rapidly ageing nations.
Eiichi Saitoh, a professor in rehabilitation medicine, demonstrated the "walk assist" device, strapping the computerised metallic brace onto his right leg, which was paralysed by polio.
He showed reporters at a Toyota facility in Tokyo how the brace could bend at the knee as needed, allowing him to walk more naturally and rise from a chair with greater ease than the walker he now uses. Wearing a backpack-like battery, Mr Saitoh walked up and down a flight of stairs.
Mr Saitoh said he had tried Toyota's machines with patients and was confident they helped people recover more quickly from strokes and other ailments that curtailed movement.
"It may be difficult to predict the future, but the era of an ageing society is definitely coming," he said. "We need partner robots to enrich our lives."
Toyota also demonstrated an intelligent machine with padded arms that can help health care workers lift disabled patients from their beds and then carry them around. Another mobility aid worked like a skateboard to help people relearn balance.
Toyota officials said technology for cars such as sensors, motors and computer software are being used in such computerised gadgets to help people get around, and what they learn about mobility for people will likely be of use in future cars.
General manager Akifumi Tamaoki said more tests were needed on more people to insure safety and reliability, and gain user feedback, but the commercial products in the works were going to be smaller and lighter than the prototype versions shown. "We define gentle and smart machines as partner robots," he said.
Toyota has previously shown human-shaped robots that played the trumpet and violin, and those that move around and talk about Toyota cars at showrooms.
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