A Japanese quadriplegic plans to ascend the peak of a Swiss mountain by riding piggyback on a mountaineer who will get some extra muscle from a robot suit, called HAL.

HAL, which stands for “hybrid assistive limb,” is a kind of wearable robot or motorised exoskeleton. Tsukuba University engineering professor Yoshiyuki Sankai developed HAL to help its operator perform tasks a normal human would not be strong enough to perform otherwise, according to the web page of Sankai’s venture company Cyberdyne.

Seiji Uchida, 43, will take a cable car to get within striking distance of the Breithorn mountain’s summit before attempting the day-long trek this August, said Shinichiro Saigo, business manager of the With Dreams organisation that Uchida founded to support the expedition.

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