Step forward of robot leg

The advancement of technology makes it possible to develop robot legs controlled by the user.

Hailey Daniswicz, who lost her leg due to bone cancer in 2005, hopes she can travel again soon thanks to the robot leg being studied and developed by American scientists.

Merge machines and people

This 20-year-old student is training to be able to control the robot leg with her own neurons and muscles later. Levi Hargrove, a scientist at the Chicago Center for Robotics (USA), told Reuters news agency : 'We are truly integrating machines with people.'

Daniswicz is part of a US military-funded clinical trial, which uses electrical signals and computer software to control a new generation of robot legs. The electrodes attached to 9 different muscle parts of her thighs act as antennas, receiving electrical signals sent from neurons to muscles. These electrical signals are emitted according to certain patterns depending on her intention to move. After a while, computers can identify the above patterns to know her intention to move.

Ms. Hailey Daniswicz and scientist Levi Hargrove at a virtual character training session on computers - Photo: Reuters

Daniswicz started training virtual characters on computers since January. Now, she can instruct the virtual character to bend and stretch her knees, stretching her ankles on the computer screen . with only slight movements of the thigh muscles. Mr. Hargrove said: ' She taught computers what to do and now whenever she sends thigh muscles, the computer listens, recognizes and makes the virtual character's feet move' .

Daniswicz was one of four volunteers who participated in the trial to determine if the patient needed additional implants to control the robot leg. After the experiment, the team was surprised to find that they could control both the knee and ankle joints of the robot legs without having to perform transplant surgeries. According to Mr. Hargrove, this finding could help more people benefit from robot legs.

Hope for people who lose their legs

According to statistics, the world has about 2 million people lost their legs. Michael Goldfarb, mechanical engineer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (USA), said the number is expected to double by 2050 as the number of people with diabetes increases. Mr. Goldfarb's team is developing a robot leg that can be controlled by nerve impulses for the project.

According to Mr. Goldfarb, the advancement of technology makes it possible to develop robot legs controlled by users. Even so, Mr. Goldfarb added that there are still no companies that can build this type of robot leg. For Chicago Robotics Center, the next step is to develop a robot leg like that to help people lose their legs naturally and safely. Mr. Hargrove hopes that by the end of this year someone will be able to use the robot leg to walk in his laboratory.

After that, these people may experience more difficult internships such as up and down stairs. However, Mr. Hargrove said it is still too early to know when the type of robot leg comes into practice. He said: ' This depends very much on the results of the studies we conducted in the near future'.