WHY PROSTHETIC ARM DESIGN?
The prosthetic arms on the market are often too burdensome to be practical and too pricey to be affordable. This really limits their accessibility to most people, and in many cases makes prosthetics far from practical.
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Given that this is the case, this project could have tangible social impact; the final product could assist disabled people, particularly children, on a day to day basis and could potentially improve thousands of lives.
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Additionally, this project has been fun! There has been and will continue to be a large amount of digital signal processing involved including complex math, coding, Fourier transforms and a variety of other concepts covered in class.
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Finally, this project paves the way to the future. Biotechnology and engineering is already one of the most influential fields with respect to improving lives, and its potential impact will only grow with time. It can be applied to various spheres and may develop into one of the largest industries in the world: it definitely merits more research!
ABOUT MICHAEL
Michael (pictured above) is a 13 year old boy who was born without the entirety of his left arm. Over the past year, the student organization called Michigan Neuroprosthetics has worked closely with him to develop a prosthetic arm that is cheap, functional, and is generally able to meet his needs.
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One of our team members, Maxton Wilson, came to know Michael through this project team, and it was this relationship that sparked the idea for our project.
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Throughout his life, Michael has had a few different arms, most of which have been mechanically powered. This means that they required physical movements of the body to reorient the arm. While functional, these prosthetics are typically quite cumbersome and are limited in what they can do.
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Given that this is the case, it seems clear that an arm operated by electronics would be far superior. Michigan Neuroprosthetics is working to provide Michael with an arm controlled by an EMG sensor, but there have been a variety of issues that have popped up in these efforts.
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Our task, then, is to design a superior setup using an infrared sensor in addition to an EMG and analyzing EMG in novel ways using digital signal processing techniques. The idea is that by combining both, we will be able to create a more robust, accurate system that creates a more practical, functional arm. We will need to design a physical setup to mount to the arm, as well as institute DSP methods to remove noise from the signal and identify when the subject is flexing. With these being accomplished, we will pass our work along to Michigan Neuroprosthetics and work with them to deliver a new arm to Michael.