Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), the world’s biggest shipbuilder and a leading medical robot manufacturer announced today it started clinical trials of Morning Walk, a gait rehabilitation robot that it jointly developed with Asan Medical Center with the target of exporting the robot to European market from 2017.

Since Morning Walk does not require auxiliary apparatus to train patients unlike other rehabilitation assistant robots, the walking-assistance robot can shorten treatment preparation time to less than five minutes. Morning Walk enables patients under mobility recovery treatment to exercise in a real-life environment with ground and stairs walking modes.

Morning Walk, certified by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, Korea’s medical regulatory authority, in 2014, will be used to treat patients with limited mobility at the Asan Medical Center until early next year. Upon completing the trials, HHI will debut the robot in European market by securing the CE marking certificate by the end of this year.

On the back of the results of the clinical tests and scheduled verification tests at medical centers across South Korea, HHI will eventually bring a medical package combining the robot and related medical application guidelines to the market.

Moreover, HHI is also gearing up for putting the other three medical robots it independently developed in clinical trials, namely a patient transfer robot system, an orthopedic surgical robot system and a needle guide type interventional robot.

Mr. Shin Hyun-soo, CTO of HHI, said, “The value of global medical automation technologies market, one of the sectors with the highest growth potential, is projected to reach billions of dollars by 2018. To bring the robot to the market, we will make sure that all of the procedures are tested and verified on schedule.”