World's First Mind Controlled Prosthetic Leg Unveiled
Researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) have developed a method of deciphering the bodies message to make a bionic leg safe to use.
Huge advances have been made in the field of Bionics, with prosthetic limbs becoming lighter, smarter and cheaper to produce. There are, however, still major roadblocks to be overcome, the biggest of which is in controlling the new limbs.
Neural interfaces aren’t yet at the standard of your average sci-fi, thoughts can be misread and mistakes do happen. For an arm these mistakes aren’t likely to cause any real harm, but with a leg it could spell disaster. RIC set out to create a prosthetic leg that would make it possible to walk or climb stairs with very little risk at all, and now Zac Vawter reaps the benefits of that goal. The leg RIC have created has been tested extensively by Zac, having been used to climbs stairs, slopes and of course level ground.