Programming Muscles for Robotic Prosthetics
Co-Investigator: Dr. Nicholas Fey, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and of bioengineering in the biomechanics research cluster; Fey is also an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at UT Southwestern Medical Center
Co-Investigator: Dr. Kenneth Hoyt, associate professor of bioengineering in the bioimaging research cluster; associate professor of radiology at UT Southwestern
Hassan Jahanandish was a PhD student at another university in the United States when he started reading published research papers from engineering faculty members at UT Dallas. He was inspired.
“It made sense to me to step down from my doctoral program to be exposed to a team of researchers here,” said Jahanandish, now a master’s student in the Jonsson School biomedical engineering program.
Dr. Nicholas Fey and Dr. Kenneth Hoyt had just launched the idea of a collaborative project applying ultrasound to understand muscles involved in controlling and assessing lower-limb prostheses – a field of translational science extensively investigated by Fey. Jahanandish’s prior training in robotics and machine learning were ideal for this project.
“We are trying to use neuromuscular signals as complementary information to control the robotic leg more efficiently,” Jahanandish said. “Muscles have good information to be used in control of a powered prosthesis, but current sensor technology is not good at capturing information from muscles.
“Ultrasound is capable of looking at superficial muscles as well as deep muscles, and with current ultrasound technology that information can be accessed with only a touch and swipe of a screen.”
Fey joined the Jonsson School in 2016 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago) and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, specializing in prosthetics and rehabilitation engineering.
Hoyt is an expert in medical imaging, signal and image processing, and cancer research. Hoyt is an elected member of the Technical Standards Committee of the American Institute for Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM), through which he helps develop, in part, standardized approaches to performing clinical measurements using ultrasound imaging systems. Hoyt joined the Jonsson School in 2015.
If their hypothesis about ultrasound capturing information from deep within muscles continues to be supported, that information could be programmed to help the wearer of a robotic lower-limb prosthesis gain a higher degree of volitional control over their device, as well as a means to assess assistance of any prosthetic leg.
As the project advances, students like Justine Borchard, an undergraduate researcher, will become more involved.
Projects such as this are motivated partly by personal reasons for Borchard.
She spent her high school years wearing a back brace that required going to physicians every six month to be fitted.
“I am interested in researching and improving medical devices to help people like me,” she said.
The junior chose UT Dallas because of the biomedical engineering program size and research opportunities.
“People say UT Dallas is nerdy,” Borchard said. “It’s kind of funny but also kind of true, and I really like that.”
Some of her “nerdy” experiences include participating in national academic conferences and collaborating with radiologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She said she feels fortunate to be part of the program.
“The new building feels clean and has a lot of neat tools and resources for us,” she said. “I also get to be around physicians and researchers. You get to see the intellectual side of things and how people think; it’s enlightening.”
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