Chloë Angus has been working with the exoskeleton company Human in Motion Robotics since 2016 to develop its device, the XoMotion.
Many people who have spinal cord injuries also have dramatic tales of disaster: a diving accident, a car crash, a construction-site catastrophe. But Chloë Angus has quite a different story. She was home one evening in 2015 when her right foot started tingling and gradually lost sensation. She managed to drive herself to the hospital, but over the course of the next day she lost all sensation and control of both legs. The doctors found a benign tumor inside her spinal cord that couldn’t be removed and told her she’d never walk again. But Angus, a jet-setting fashion designer, isn’t the type to take such news lying—or sitting—down.
Ten years later, at the CES tech trade show in January, Angus was showing off her dance moves in a powered exoskeleton from the Canadian company Human in Motion Robotics. “Getting back to walking is pretty cool after spinal cord injury, but getting back to dancing is a game changer,” she told a crowd on the expo floor. The company’s XoMotion device is only the second exoskeleton that’s self-balancing, meaning that users needn’t lean on crutches and can have their hands free for other tasks.
“The statement ‘You’ll never walk again’ is no longer true in this day and age with the technology that we have,” says Angus.
Angus uses the joystick to control walking speed and direction. She can also trigger specialized movements such as climbing stairs, sidestepping, squatting, and sitting.Spencer Lowell
Human in Motion already has approval in Canada for a version of its exoskeleton that’s intended for use in rehab facilities, and it began U.S. clinical trials of that version in April. The company sees the rehab version as a stepping-stone toward a personal-use exoskeleton that people like Angus can bring home. The company’s ultimate goal is to see its technology transform the daily lives of people with spinal cord injuries.
“The cure for spinal cord injury is not here yet,” says Ann Spungen, who recently retired from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) after working on exoskeletons for more than a decade. “There’s a lot of effort and a lot of funding, but there’s no ideal treatment that restores motor and sensory control below the [injury].” But, she says, “exoskeletons are here and now. These devices offer a solution until there is a cure.”
The Origin of the XoMotion Exoskeleton
Angus, who works as Human in Motion’s director of lived experience, has been involved with the company and its technology since 2016. That’s when she met a couple of academics at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, who had a novel idea for an exoskeleton. Siamak Arzanpour and Edward Park wanted to draw on cutting-edge technology used to control humanoid robots to build a self-balancing device.
Angus typically controls the XoMotion with a joystick, but company engineers recently created “dance mode” to let her drop the joystick and go entirely hands-free. In dance mode, the exoskeleton’s sensors detect the motions of her torso and translate them into leg movements. Spencer Lowell
When Angus first explored exoskeleton technology, the landscape was dominated by companies like Ekso Bionics and ReWalk Robotics, each of which had a model for use in rehab settings. However, those early models had significant limitations: Most notably, both exoskeletons required crutches to stabilize the user’s upper body while walking. What’s more, users needed assistance to get in and out of the exoskeleton, and the devices often couldn’t handle turns, steps, or slopes. Angus remembers trying out an Ekso exoskeleton in 2016: “By the end of the week, I said, ‘This is fun, but we need to build a better exoskeleton.’ ” She wanted something that could more seamlessly become part of her everyday life.
Angus’s desire for a more practical, hands-free exoskeleton struck a chord with Human in Motion’s founders. Arzanpour, the CEO, says that his team was always drawn to the engineering challenge of making a self-balancing exoskeleton. “When we met with Chloë, we realized that what we envisioned is what the users needed,” he says. “She validated our vision.”
Throughout the years of the XoMotion’s development, Angus worked closely with the engineers to ensure that they were building something that users would find both functional and comfortable. She remembers giving feedback about the original sequence of movements that brought the device from its sitting position to upright. “The first time I tried it, I said, ‘It feels like I’m in a garbage compactor!’ It folded me like a clam.” The engineers went back to the drawing board.
How Do Self-Balancing Exoskeletons Work?
Self-balancing exoskeletons use much of the same technology found in the many humanoid robots now entering the market. They have bundles of actuators at the ankles, knees, and hip joints, an array of sensors to detect both the exoskeleton’s shifting positions and the surrounding environment, and very fast processors to crunch all that sensor data and generate instructions for the device’s next moves.
While self-balancing exoskeletons are bulkier than those that require crutches or arm braces, Arzanpour says the independence they confer on their users makes the technology an obvious winner. He also notes that self-balancing models can be used by a wider range of people, including people who have limited upper body strength and mobility due to injuries fairly high up on their spinal cords.
Left: The XoMotion has actuators at the hip, knee, and ankle joints. The prior generation of exoskeletons, which required users to lean on crutches, didn’t include actuators at the ankle joints. Right: The high backplate and self-balancing capabilities of the XoMotion [seen here from behind] make it possible for people with relatively high spinal cord injuries to use it. Spencer Lowell
When Angus wants to put on an XoMotion, it sits down in a chair next to her wheelchair. She’s able to transfer herself and strap herself into the device without help. Then she uses a simple joystick that’s wired to the exoskeleton to control its direction, walking speed, and specialized motions such as climbing stairs, sidestepping, sitting, and squatting. She notes that the exoskeleton could work with a variety of different control mechanisms, but a wired connection is deemed the safest: “That way, there’s no Wi-Fi signal to drop,” she says.
In the rehab settings where the XoMotion will first be used, the therapist will typically hold the joystick, leaving the user’s hands totally free. And the Human in Motion team has already been experimenting with other control techniques. For example, when Angus puts the device into the “dance mode” that the engineers created for her, she can let go of the controller and rely on the exoskeleton’s sensors to pick up on the subtle shifts of her torso and translate them into hip and leg movements.
To keep users on the move, the XoMotion draws power from two batteries in the back, which can be “hot swapped” while the user is wearing the device. Angus says it can operate at top speed for 2 or 3 hours before the batteries need a recharge.
What Are the Challenges for Home-Use Exoskeletons?
Arun Jayaraman, who conducts research on exoskeletons at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago, has been working with Human in Motion on its clinical trials. He says that self-balancing exoskeletons are better suited for at-home use than exoskeletons that require arm support: “Having to use assistive devices like walkers and crutches makes it difficult to transition across surfaces like level ground, ramps, curbs, or uneven surfaces.”
Human in Motion isn’t the first company to offer a hands-free exoskeleton. That honor goes to the French company Wandercraft, which already has regulatory approval for its rehab model in Brazil, Europe, and the United States and last month began clinical trials for an at-home model. But Arzanpour says the XoMotion offers several technical advances over Wandercraft’s device. Those include a precise alignment of the robotic joints with the user’s biological joints to ensure that undue stress isn’t put on the body, as well as torque sensors in the actuators to gather more accurate data about the machine’s movements.
Getting approval for a home-use model is a challenge for any exoskeleton company, says Saikat Pal, an associate professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology who’s involved in Wandercraft’s clinical trials. “For any device that’s going to be used at home, the parameters will be different from a clinic,” says Pal. “Every home looks different and has different clearances. The engineering problem is several times more complex when you move the device home.” To date, only two exoskeletons have received approval for at-home use, and both of those models required the use of arm supports.
Of course, selling at-home exoskeletons means that customers must pay for them directly—and exoskeletons aren’t cheap, typically costing between US $80,000 and $100,000. (Human in Motion hasn’t yet disclosed its pricing.) The VA, in the United States, has covered the cost of exoskeletons for eligible veterans since 2015, but it was only last year that Medicare, the U.S. program that pays for health care for older people, began reimbursements for most of the cost of personal-use devices. Some private insurance companies have followed the lead of the VA and Medicare.
There’s a compelling reason for insurance companies to jump on the bandwagon. As Angus notes, “Insurers and health care companies don’t usually pay for things unless the technology is providing a better outcome and at a lesser cost.” In clinical studies, researchers have found secondary health benefits for people using exoskeletons in rehab settings, including better sleep, better bladder and bowel function, lower cholesterol, fewer pressure sores, and, unsurprisingly, better mood.
Despite the challenges of bringing an exoskeleton into home settings, Angus remains confident that the technology will evolve rapidly. She says she has faith that Human in Motion’s engineers will solve the problems within a couple of years, enabling her to take an XoMotion home with her. And she can’t wait.
“You know how it feels to fly 14 hours in coach? You want to stretch so bad. Now imagine living in that airplane seat for the rest of your life,” she says. “When I get into the exoskeleton, it only takes a few minutes for my back to lengthen out.” She imagines putting on the XoMotion in the morning, doing some stretches, and making her husband breakfast. With maybe just a few dance breaks.
This article appears in the June 2025 print issue as “An Exoskeleton Made for Dancing.”