A cheaper, high-performance prosthetic knee

Thursday, July 30, 2015 - 23:30 in Physics & Chemistry

In the last two decades, prosthetic limb technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, the most advanced prostheses incorporate microprocessors that work with onboard gyroscopes, accelerometers, and hydraulics to enable a person to walk with a normal gait. Such top-of-the-line prosthetics can cost more than $50,000. Amos Winter is aiming to develop a passive, low-tech prosthetic knee that performs nearly as well as high-end prosthetics, at a fraction of the cost. “We’re going after this disruptive opportunity,” says Winter, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “If we can make a knee that delivers similar performance to a $50,000 knee for a few hundred dollars, that’s a game-changer.” Now Winter and his colleagues have taken a significant step toward that goal. In a paper published in IEEE’s Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, the team reports that it has calculated the ideal torque that a prosthetic knee should produce, given...

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