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Bionic Leg for the Commercial Market

Posted by timothy on from the less-than-6-million-dollars dept.

Jay writes "I thought you may be interested in this crazy-cool fully powered bionic knee called the Power Knee. It's made by Victhom, a French-Canadian company and will be marketed by Ossur, an Icelandic prosthetics company and one of the biggest prosthetics companies in the world. You may have seen them in the news lately with their Rheo Knee or rheomagnetic computer controlled knee. This new Power Knee takes it to the next level with full active power. Supposedly it will allow people to walk up stairs and the like. Here's the link to Ossur's Power Knee website with photos and video, and to Victhom's website. Cool video, amazing device."

6 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. i don't really get it by killa62 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    so is it just a replacement leg for someone who lost their leg? So it read your body's "mind" and does whatever you want?
    So if you jump on landing it will bend a little so that it coushins the jump?
    and if you run it mimics how your other leg moves so that your body can't tell if it is a real or fake leg?

  2. Another application? by Pi_0's+don't+shower · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While this looks promising for prosthetics, as the article says, I wonder if this has any implication for simple knee-replacement surgery? As someone whose family has a history of knee replacement surgeries, it sure would be nice if they could make an artificial knee that would last more than 15 years...

  3. power consumption by phloydphreak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article states the the prosthetic generates its own power, probably a kinetic power generator. How much power can such a device output, especially to run an embeded AI which determines the movement of the limb. Does the limb eventually run out of power (reducing it back to a normal prosthetic)? Such as, if the limb is not used for an extended period of time? The very design of it is ingenious though, and I would not doubt that they have made the system fully self-sufficient. Very cool.

    --
    "this is the gloaming"
    radiohead
    1. Re:power consumption by ForestGrump · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, "normal prostetics" are quite impressive at times.

      My Dad used to have a co-worker who lost his leg to cancer in his 20's. He walked fairly well, minus the slight awkardness (more like a limp). If you saw him around the office, you'd assume he had a bad day of tennis, not a missing leg.

      I imagine the leg would act like a "normal" prostetic, and only give power in short burstsm to help you up a slope or a flight of stairs. The rest of the time, it would recharge the battery (hopefully that doesn't weigh too much).

      --
      Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
  4. A useful feature that is missing by David_Shultz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A feature that would be very useful, though I didn't see it mentioned anywhere on the site, would be the ability to "punish" the knee for making an error. Most learning algorithms work by having a teacher tell them what sort of actions/decisions were right or wrong. With this system, there is probably some sort of hardcoded teacher, which is not necessarily the best way to do things -the best judge of what you want your bionic leg to do is probably yourself, and not a programmer somewhere. For example, if your leg starts to give way as youre walking up stairs, forcing you to catch onto the rail to prevent serious injury, you should have the ability to say, basically "bad leg!". By pressing the appropriate button, you would teach the AI that it made a mistake, and it would modify itself as necessary. A similar system might be useful for telling the system when its doing a good job, perhaps a dial that simply represents the users satisfaction.

  5. Longevity of artificial joints by spineboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes, 15 years is the lifetime that we're seeing, on average, but remember that these were put in 15 years ago! The plastics (ultra high molec weight, highly cross linked poly) are supposedly much better now, and should last longer than the 15 years.

    Hips and knees are diferent - knees are currently limited to metal on plastic, whereas hips can come in a variety of composites. Recently, metal -metal hips, and ceramic hips have been making a go around - they are supposed to have 10 times less wear than the plastic-metal hips.

    TO be honest 15 years is very good. Most people really dont need a total joint arthroplasty (artificial joint) until they are over 50 years of age. One revision surgery should last them until they are around 80 - which is currently a little higher than the average lifespan of most people.

    Several factors have an effect on the lifetim of these artificial joints - younger, heavier people wear theirs out faster , than older lighter people. However, being overweight probably was a MAJOR contributing factor for the reason that many people need these in the first place.

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    ..........FULL STOP.