Revolutionizing Prosthetics

DARPA Sponsored Prosthetics Development
Dr. Kevin Englehart

The Institute of Biomedical Engineeing at the University of New Brunswick has been contracted in two major initiatives sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). These initiatives are in response to the substantial casualties incurred during the conflicts in Afganistan and Iraq.

A two year project, entitled “Prosthesis 2007” has been awarded to Deka Research (Manchester NH), which aims to dramatically improve the state-of-the-art in upper limb prosthetics. This will be accomplished by using existing technology or near-term innovation to produce a limb that will alowa user to simultaneously control a shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand. Partners in this project are:

The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the leading rehabilitation hospital in the United States.
Chicago PT, LLC. This is a private company formed by Northwestern University faculty, with expertise in human/machine physical interaction.
Good Imaging Technologies, Boulder CO. GIT will produce realistic prosthetic gloves.
IBME at UNB. IBME has a substantial role in this project; we will develop the embedded computer that interprets the muscle activity of the user, and relays control information to the prosthesis. This will involve hardware and software design, as well as clinical expertise in prosthetics.

A four year project, entitled “Revolutionizing Prosthetics” has been awarded to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. This initiative will realize a prosthetic limb that has function identical to an intact human limb, in terms of dexterity and sensory perception. It will involve parallel technologies deriving information from the muscles, peripheral nerves, and the brain.

The diverse APL team brings together some of the most respected scientific researchers in their fields and commercial leaders from the prosthetics industry, including investigators from Arizona State University, the BioSTAR Group, California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, National Rehabilitation Hospital, New World Associates, Northwestern University and the Northwestern University Prosthetics Research Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Otto Bock Health Care (Austria), Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Umea University (Sweden), University of Michigan, University of Rochester, University of California, Irvine, University of Southern California, University of Utah and Vanderbilt University. Second-tier subcontractors and other collaborators include Chicago P/T, the Fraunhoffer Institutes for Biomedical Technology and Reliability & Microintegration (Germany), FLEXSYS, Harvey Mudd College, Martin Bionics, Punch Communications, Ripple, Scott Sabolich Prosthetics and Research, the Scuola Superiore Sant' Anna (Italy), Sigenics of Lincolnwood, and the University of New Brunswick (Canada).

IBME’s role in this initiative includes similar activities and deliverables as in the Prosthesis 2007 project, but also involves working closely with other partners in signal processing of the peripheral nerve and brain signals.

An important partnership underlies both projects: UNB and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago have been collaborating since 2003 on advanced prosthetic systems. Dr. Todd Kuiken at the RIC has pioneered a surgical procedure that allows nerves from an amputated limb to be transferred to other, unused muscles. This procedure has been performed on four patients, each with tremendous success. They are capable of controlling prosthetic joints with the nerves mapped to new muscle sites, while eliciting control exactly as they would have prior to losing a limb. This research has received extensive press, including coverage by the Chicago Tribune, The Today Show (NBC), Good Morning America (ABC), and Paula Zahn Now (CNN). It was awarded the year’s “Best Medical Technology” in the December 2005 issue of Popular Science. The May issue of Reader’s Digest (available April 18) names the work in an article entitled “The Best of America.”

The DARPA press release can be viewed using the following link http://www.darpa.mil/body/news/current/prosth.pdf