MusculoSkeletal Expansion

Projektbeschreibung

Unterstützende Technologie für Muskelschwäche

Viele Menschen mit schwerer Muskelschwäche der oberen Gliedmaßen als Folge neurologischer Erkrankungen haben Schwierigkeiten, wirksame Hilfsmittel zu finden. Derzeitige Lösungen, wie z. B. tragbare Exoskelette, sind vielversprechend, stoßen aber auf erhebliche Hindernisse wie Ineffizienz, schlechte Steuerbarkeit und unzuverlässige Benutzerverbindungen. Ziel des ERC-finanzierten Projekts MUSE ist es in diesem Zusammenhang, weiche externe Muskeln, sogenannte Exomuskeln, zu entwickeln, die sich nahtlos in die natürlichen Bewegungen der Person integrieren. Durch den Einsatz fortgeschrittener pneumatischer Aktuatoren und Osseointegration bietet MUSE eine zuverlässige Verbindung zwischen dem Gerät und dem Körper und ermöglicht eine verbesserte Bewegungssteuerung durch sensorisches Feedback. Dieser Ansatz dient nicht nur dazu, den Alltag von Menschen mit Muskelschwäche zu verbessern, sondern könnte auch den Weg für anspruchsvollere Interaktionen zwischen Mensch und Maschine ebnen.

Ziel

People that suffer from severe muscle weakness of the (upper) limb following neurological disorders still struggle to find assistive technologies able to help them in their daily life. The most advanced technologies consist of wearable exoskeletons, either rigid or soft, that promise to support the wearer during daily living. Despite their great potential, the widespread adoption of exoskeletons where they are most needed – i.e. for continuous daily home assistance – is prevented by several flaws: limited efficiency, controllability, and lack of reliable ways to connect them to the user. MUSE (MusculoSkeletal Expansion) abandons the paradigm of wearing an exoskeleton to develop and clinically assess soft external muscles (exomuscles) intimately connected and naturally controlled by the user. The core objective is to develop innovative efficient exomuscles to support people with severe muscle weakness. With my solid experience in soft robotics and innovative materials, I will develop them by combining the extreme portability of pneumatic actuators made of textiles with the energy efficiency and promptness of non-linear elastic structures. They will be reliably connected to the user through fixtures implanted on the bones, which will grant the excellent mechanical stability of osseointegration, widely adopted in dental prosthetics and increasingly explored in limb prosthetics, but still unexplored in exoskeletons. This approach will unlock the potential of eliciting osseoperception, i.e. sensory feedback – necessary to control motion – through bone conduction. If successful, MUSE will benefit all those in need of sensorimotor augmentation, as it can be extended to all kinds of exoskeletons (from upper to lower limbs, from assistive to augmenting devices). Moreover, since MUSE connects the inner body to the external world, it may be the cornerstone to build a bidirectional gateway between them, bridging the human and the machine to a more and more intimate level.