10 Emerging Technologies - Biomechatronics
Prosthetics: Mating robotics with the nervous system creates a new generation
  of artificial limbs that work like the real thing. 
From: Technology Review - May 2005 - page 52
By: Corie Lok

Conventional leg prostheses frequently leave their users, especially
above-the-knee amputees, stumbling and falling or walking with abnormal
gaits. Hugh Herr, a professor at MITs Media Laboratory, is building
more-reliable prostheses that users can control more precisely. Some of the
latest prosthetic knees on the market already have microprocessors built into
them that can be programmed to help the limbs move more naturally. But Herr
has taken this idea one step further. He has developed a knee with built-in
sensors that can measure how far the knee is bent, as well as the amount of
force the user applies to it while walking. This artificial knee - recently
commercialized by the Icelandic company ssur - also contains a computer chip
that analyzes the sensor data to create a model of the users gait, and adapt
the movement and resistance of the knee accordingly. 

Read the entire story at:
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/05/issue/feature_emerging.asp?p=10

Links:
Hugh Herr
http://biomech.media.mit.edu/people/herr.htm

Biomechatronics Group at MIT
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobden/biomechatronic_devices.html
http://biomech.media.mit.edu/

Scientific American Frontiers - Spring Man
http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous/watchonline405.htm

The Courage to Give
http://web.mit.edu/spotlight/ailab/

Intelligent External Knee Prosthesis
http://robosapiens.mit.edu/knee.htm

VA Funds Limb-Loss Research
http://www.media.mit.edu/press/announce-20041208.html

Embracing the Artificial Limb
http://www.wired.com/news/avantgo/story/0,2278,66633-,00.html
http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2005/02/embracing_the_a.html

Motorfoot
http://www.resna.org/sigs/sig11/archive/motorfoot.htm

Bionic Prosthetics
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001276.html

Technology, Media, and Disability
http://archives.trblogs.com/2005/01/technology_medi.trml

Biomechatronic Man 
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1612214,00.asp

