The BiOM!

Hello Readers!

My plan for the next few weeks is to meet with various lab members and understand their role is. Hopefully, I can get a greater grasp on the details of the research. I will try to convey what I learn in a way that's easy to understand.

I first met with Eric Lockwood, who is working on the engineer aspect of the research. Eric gave me a plethora of information, so let's dive into it.

First and foremost: data collection. The team compares the data that they get from testing against computer simulations through Matlab to see how well the device is running. The team simplifies the lower leg muscles by clumping them all together into the anterior (front of leg) and posterior muscle (back of leg) groups. The anterior muscle dorsiflexes (pulls the toe towards the shank) the foot at the ankle. The posterior muscle aids in stabilization of the lower leg and plantar flexes the foot at the ankle; this is the motor of the leg, pushing the foot into the group to help us walk forward. The goal of the lab's research is to reproduce human walking with a motorized lower limb prosthesis. Eric optimizes the Matlab code, and send it off to our collaborators in Boston, Bionx. They compile the code into a format that the BiOM prosthesis computer can read. The team then uploads the new code into the ankle.

Next on our list, actually getting the code into the prosthesis computer. This is not as easy as it seems, since the prosthesis is usually only meant to do this once, but we have to do it all the time! A Piecer board is connected to the BiOM, which allows to to talk to our laptops. From there, we upload the code to the ankle. There are three parts to this code: Motor Controller, Gait Controller and IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit). Motor Controller code tells the motor how much power should be delivered to the ankle. The gait Controller code figures out where the person is in the walking gait. It also communicates to the program to determine which activations are needed to power the motor. The IMU code does calculations and measurements. An encoder reads where the motor is at with respect to degrees. Once the program is uploaded to the prosthesis, real testing can begin! During testing, the lab uses a Pole Test, which is used to simulate a gait cycle and check if there are any major bugs. Then, they move to human  subject trials, but we will leave that for next time.

Update, I am currently working on getting IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval so I can finally work with the subjects! I will keep you updated as I go through the process as it is quite a long process to complete.

Until next time,

Krishna Patel