Stéphane Marouani, Country Manager ANZ, Mathworks
One simple breath and the prosthetic hand closed. Another breath opened the fingers, the movement happening in a heartbeat. “It feels like magic,” a child with an upper limb difference in Bengaluru, India, told the University of Oxford team that made the prototype.
C
alled Airbender, the wearable
upper limb prosthetic is designed to be affordable, comfortable and intuitive for young users. A unique turbine and gearbox optimise torque and revolutions per minute (RPM). “Body-powered prosthetics only considers the musculoskeletal system,” observed Jeroen Bergmann, an associate professor of engineering sciences who leads the project at the University of Oxford. “I came up with the idea for a breathpowered system after patients and clinicians expressed a need for new devices that are easy to use, especially for children.” Currently, the most prevalent prosthetic hands rely on technology that hasn’t changed much in more than 200 years. These cable and harness systems require muscular strength to operate. To develop a breath-powered system, Bergmann recruited postdoctoral biomedical engineering researcher Dr Vikranth Nagaraja for the project in February 2019. A year later, postdoctoral engineer Dr Jhonatan Da Ponte Lopes joined them. To produce an operational device, Bergmann also partnered with the non-profit organisations Mobility India and St. John’s Medical College Hospital in Bengaluru, UK-based charity LimbBo Foundation and 3D LifePrints (now Insight Surgery). The team received invaluable manufacturing support from the departmental workshops, particularly 3D-printing support from Dr Peter Walters.
Breath powers paediatric prosthetic hand Virtual prototyping produces intuitive device for children
“The clinical and patient communities helped us tremendously,” Bergmann said. “Now we are optimising the hand functionality and manufacturability and will be exploring new funding opportunities to move our work into the clinical testing phase.”
6 | LAB+LIFE SCIENTIST - Feb/Mar 2024
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