Piggy-back climbers

Switzerland - A Japanese quadriplegic plans to try to ascend the peak of a Swiss mountain today by riding piggyback on a mountaineer who will get some extra muscle from a robot suit.

Seiji Uchida, 43, who was left paralysed from the neck down after a traffic accident in 1983, will attempt the final ascent of the Breithorn mountain on the back of alpinist Ken Noguchi, who will wear a motorised exoskeleton known as HAL, or Hybrid Assistive Limb.

Noguchi is an experienced mountaineer who has climbed the highest peak on each of the seven continents. He and Uchida will be joined by a second HAL-suited climber carrying Kyoga Ide, a 16-year old high school student with muscular dystrophy, according to the expedition's website.

Uchida has said his motivation for the climb was to "create new possibilities for the disabled as well as realise a dream".

Attempts to climb the mountain on Saturday and Sunday failed due to adverse weather conditions, and the team is hoping to strike out for the 4,164-metres peak today.

The expedition will take a cable car up the mountain and begin their 3-hour climb from about 280 metres below the summit.

HAL is a kind of wearable robot developed by Tsukuba University engineering professor Yoshiyuki Sankai to help its operator perform tasks a normal human would not be strong enough for, according to the web page of Sankai's venture company Cyberdyne.

Using HAL, someone who could normally lift 100 kg at a leg press machine could lift 180 kg, according to Cyberdyne.

The Breithorn is located close to the Italian border in the southern Swiss canton (state) of Valais. The mountain is considered one of the easiest 4,000-metre (13,000 feet) Alpine peaks to climb.