Next week the American College of Sports Medicine meets in Seattle to discuss the latest in Sports Medicine, technology, and research. Click here to view the topics abstract.
Slid quietly into the afternoon of May 27th is a session that caught my eye: "Exoskeletons for Assisting and Enhancing Human Locomotor Performance: Engineering, Biomechanics, and Physiological Considerations."
The session is being led by Dr. Hugh Herr, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT. Dr. Herr runs the biomechatronics lab at MIT, a place where orthotics are born.
However, the exoskeleton work appears to be a new initiative at MIT, for the section of their website about it is still listed as "coming soon." Disappointing.
Nevertheless, this reinforces my belief that no one has the nerve to work on the hand. The leg, specifically the knee, is a 1 degree of freedom axis of rotation with essentially 4 muscles controlling it. The forearm and hand, in comparison, has 16 degrees of freedom (more depending on your argument) and over 23 different muscles to control it, plus more muscles to isolate the wrist.
However I don't think the arm is too complex to augment with an exoskeleton. I just think we need to think harder.
Further, working on individual parts of the body is great, and necessary, but until we develop "whole-body" powered suits, more like the SARCOS suit, then we are not really getting anywhere.
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Friday, 22 May 2009
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