Periodic Reporting for period 3 - MyLeg (Smart and intuitive osseointegrated transfemoral prostheses embodying advanced dynamic behaviors)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-07-01 al 2023-02-28
The MyLeg prosthetic system will be directly anchored to the amputee’s bone by means of osseointegrated implant to enhance the human-prosthesis interaction, perception, and motion capabilities; it will include implantable myoelectric sensors on targeted reinnervated muscles to realize an intuitive EMG control and to provide a high-level of cognition abilities; it will implement variable stiffness actuators realized with stress-stiffening nanostructured materials that guarantee high adaptability with respect to different tasks, dependability, and decisional autonomy; it will exploit light-weighted nanofibrous materials for sensing and energy harvesting.
Expected impacts:
- MyLeg will have a societal impact. Transfemoral amputees will better accept the prosthesis, their quality of life will improve, they will reach a higher degree of self-reliance, their social contacts will be enlarged, their (re-)integration in the society and in the labour-market will be facilitated.
- MyLeg will have an economic impact. Transfemoral amputees will need less support by formal/informal caregivers, which will reduce the burden on these groups and on society as a whole.
- MyLeg will impact the leadership role of Europe in the prosthetic market and, more in general, in the robotic world.
Objectives:
MyLeg will develop a new generation of powered transfemoral prosthetic legs that can be intuitively operated, sensed, and trusted as the healthy and reliable counterpart for a variety of tasks. The main objectives of the project are:
- To enhance human-prosthesis interaction, perception, and motion capabilities by exploiting osseointegration.
- To provide an intuitive control and to extend the user’s cognitive capabilities by using implantable myoelectric sensors on targeted reinnervated muscles.
- To achieve energy efficiency, dependability, and adaptability to different tasks by designing novel variable stiffness actuators and composite materials.
- The amputees’ needs have been deeply investigated (WP2).
- The benchmarks for the MyLeg system have been defined together with their measurable performance indexes (WP2).
- The requirements on the MyLeg systems have been listed (WP2).
- The tests of the first MyLeg prototype have been performed in March 2020, suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and re-started/finalized in August 2020 (WP3, WP6).
- The tests of the second MyLeg prototype have been performed in June 2021(WP3, WP6).
- The tests of the third MyLeg prototype have been performed in November 2022(WP3, WP4, WP5, WP6).
- The overall control architecture has been designed and implemented (WP3, WP5).
- Osseintegrated transfermoral amputee models have been developed and validated with amputee data (WP3).
- Composite materials have been developed for sensing (WP4).
- A first prototype for HD-EMG recording has been developed (WP5).
- High-level control strategies (based on sEMG) have been developed (WP5).
- First tests on fine-wire electrodes on TMR patients have been performed (WP5 and WP6).
- Clinical tests on osseointegrated patients have been performed (WP6).
- Clinical tests on target muscle reinnervation have been performed (WP6).
- The project website (www.myleg.eu) have been updated (WP7).
- Contributions to international conferences, journals, and general-public magazines have been published (WP7).
- The project MyLeg and its underlying ideas have been presented at several venues (WP7).
- A preliminary business plan has been prepared (WP7).
- The design of the first fully-passive MyLeg prototype contains potential patents in terms of mechanism design and novel materials (WP3 and WP4).
- The overall control architecture has been designed to accomodate for a variety of activities of daily living (WP3).
- The medical procedure for target muscle reinnervation on transferal amputees have been studied and designed by the orthopedic surgeons (WP6).
Expected results:
The expected results are still in line with the project proposal.
Expected impacts:
- MyLeg will have a societal impact. Transfemoral amputees will better accept the prosthesis, their quality of life will improve, they will reach a higher degree of self-reliance, their social contacts will be enlarged, their (re-)integration in the society and in the labour-market will be facilitated.
- MyLeg will have an economic impact. Transfemoral amputees will need less support by formal/informal caregivers, which will reduce the burden on these groups and on society as a whole.
- MyLeg will impact the leadership role of Europe in the prosthetic market and, more in general, in the robotic world.