Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have been studying the way that humans and other animals use their muscles in order to better control powered prostheses. Today most prosthetic legs can’t compensate for unexpected changes in terrain, bumps against stationary objects, and common stumbles we’ve all been victims of. The CMU researchers incorporated a lot of their findings into a simulation of a robotic leg and then into a real robotic device.
The tests apparently showed considerable improvement in the entire range of the walking gait when disturbances are introduced (results soon to be published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering) and plans are in the works to embed the software into actual prosthetic devices and test them out with volunteer amputees.
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