Research

03. Design and developments of Prosthetics/multi-functional artificial limbs for people with amputated limbs

Principal investigator: M Hasan SHAHEED

The development of prosthetic bionics and exoskeletons are an active area of research of biomedical engineering, along with human-machine interface technologies. Many commercial products are available, but they are limited in terms of dexterity, processing power, design and capabilities. The available products are mainly based on surface EMG (sEMG) signals or optical input from the environment.  Moreover, they are also very heavy and rigid, leading to muscle fatigue in the remaining muscles. Our investigations involve the use of Electroencephalography (EEG) signal, motor and reflex signals from spinal cord along with the sEMG signals for identification of user intent and training of a Convolutional Neural Network for classification of the gestures. We are also investigating soft robotics approaches to reduce the weight of the prosthetic and to give it a realistic feel.