EAGER: Wearable Nanofabrication Designs Create Better Fitting Intelligent Prosthetic Sockets

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The past decades have witnessed great progress in the prosthetics field through new materials and technologies such as targeted muscle reinnervation, powered knee, and ankle prosthesis. However, the biomechanical load due to the unnatural mechanical interaction between the soft tissues of the residual limb and the prosthetic socket is still not fully understood and needs to be further investigated. This interdisciplinary research project will create new sensing and computational methods enabling knowledge discovery for better prosthesis fitting quality with the goal of enhancing the design, fit, usability, and interface of prosthetic limbs for individuals with amputation in practice.The objective of this project is to investigate force distribution between the stump and socket by developing a wireless sensing device and a force visualization system. This proposal explores an accurate force-sensing design using a unique three-dimensional nanowall network structure, which allows the fabrication of a robust sensor array on a flexible platform for quantitative pressure and shear force measurement. This interdisciplinary research project consists of sensor material synthesis, device fabrication, platform and signal processing unit design for the stump-socket interface application, and a machine learning-based solution to analyze the information that affects the sense of comfortable fit. The proposed research is multidisciplinary, bringing together the fields of digital design and test, human machine interface, sensors, and signal processing and extending the impact of mobile sensing and health technology to the prosthetics research. A team of investigators and students from Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center with complementary expertise will carry out this collaborative project. The proposed solution is expected to help prosthetists to design better devices and make the fitting procedure convenient and straightforward. Students working on the project will receive training across multiple disciplines.