A research team at Stanford has developed an unusual electronic prosthesis that looks like a small tripod, equipped with movement and balance sensors, which provides amputees with more stability on any terrain.
The device, developed with a new rapid prototyping technique that allows to reduce costs and timescales, can help almost 12 million amputees in the world who, due to the movement difficulties linked to current prostheses, see their quality of life reduced.
The new bionic foot eliminates risks of falls and extends the terrain on which ones you can walking: distributing pressure across three contact points on the ground instead of just one is the key this result. The foot brings its "adjustment" movements closer to natural ones, thanks to sensors that monitor and change the position of the device acting on his small servomotors.
The absolute challenge when it comes to prosthesis is to make them as light and less expensive as possible: without the modern prototyping techniques used in this case the process of perfecting devices can last years, but at Stanford they forged ahead by using a "prosthesis simulator" which analyzed every aspect of the various creations even before of the phase of production.
