Bionic Leg Undergoing Clinical Trials 86
fangmcgee writes "A 'bionic' leg designed for people who have lost a lower leg is undergoing clinical trials sponsored by the US Army. The researchers hope the leg will be able to learn the patient's nerve signal patterns and be able to move in response to the patient's own muscles and nerves (abstract). Electrodes are attached to nine muscles in the thigh to detect the patterns in which the nerve signals are fired. Different patterns correspond to different intended movements. In the current stages of training, the volunteers are wired up to the electrodes and learn how to use the muscles to make a computer avatar move on screen. Results showed that all the volunteers could control the avatar’s knee and ankle movements from neural information from the thigh, with amputees achieving 91 percent accuracy of movement and the non-amputees achieving 89 percent."
Yay for Wii-motion-plus level accuracy (Score:3, Interesting)
You would think they would be able to do better than 90%. With that accuracy you would fall down the stairs at least 1 out of every 10 times you go down them.
I recently dumped the C-Leg for a general mechanical leg because it drove me nuts how I had no say how the C-Leg tried to guess what I was doing... and if it didn't know, it would go into geriactric safety mode. I don't plan on using another knee that I have to recharge until this kind of tech actually comes to fruitation. I have a feeling it will be another 5 to 10 years.