Spring Break
URI professor wins award for work with amputees
Jeff Sullivan
Issue date: 11/13/08 Section: News
The main problem with prosthetic legs today, Huang said, is that most are based on weight and pressure systems and do not have an effective system for undertaking complex and mechanically difficult maneuvers, like running or negotiating rocky terrain.
She explained that the system for this rests in muscle control, which is provided by muscles left over on the remainder of the amputated leg. They are studied for their full ranges of motion and the electrical signals they emit.
Once all the critical movements and signals are identified, a prosthetic leg can then be programmed to respond to provide movement-specific functions based on the signals received.
"When a person wants to negotiate a stair, they will contact their muscle and it will tell the prosthetic that the next step is a stair," she said.
Huang started off her career in motor control as a postdoctoral associate under Todd A. Kuiken at the Research Institute of Chicago.
She now teaches Electrical Engineering 457, "Feedback Control Systems," and although she is a new faculty member, she hopes to teach a neural engineering class as early as next semester.
"I really like the students here," she said. "[URI] is not as big as I thought, but there is some exciting research going on here."
Delsys Inc. is a company that designs, produces and advertises products used to observe and quantify electrical signals that a muscle generates when it contracts. They also make EKG sensors, accelerometers, foot sensors, goniometers and other products.
She explained that the system for this rests in muscle control, which is provided by muscles left over on the remainder of the amputated leg. They are studied for their full ranges of motion and the electrical signals they emit.
Once all the critical movements and signals are identified, a prosthetic leg can then be programmed to respond to provide movement-specific functions based on the signals received.
"When a person wants to negotiate a stair, they will contact their muscle and it will tell the prosthetic that the next step is a stair," she said.
Huang started off her career in motor control as a postdoctoral associate under Todd A. Kuiken at the Research Institute of Chicago.
She now teaches Electrical Engineering 457, "Feedback Control Systems," and although she is a new faculty member, she hopes to teach a neural engineering class as early as next semester.
"I really like the students here," she said. "[URI] is not as big as I thought, but there is some exciting research going on here."
Delsys Inc. is a company that designs, produces and advertises products used to observe and quantify electrical signals that a muscle generates when it contracts. They also make EKG sensors, accelerometers, foot sensors, goniometers and other products.
