"Tomorrow" was the title of the Israeli Presidential Conference that brought thousands of foreigners and locals to the Jerusalem International Convention Center 10 days ago. However, although the geopolitical, Jewish, environmental, cultural and other themes discussed will probably be relevant in another decade, many of the scientific ones will by then seem routine.
Amputees will soon have access to robotic limbs that will give them virtually superhuman physical abilities.
Photo: Wired magazine
The robot ankles and feet that carried Massachusetts Institute of Technology Prof. Hugh Herr over the vast carpeted halls and peeked out from the bottom of his trousers attracted some stares from passersby, but they aroused intense admiration when he stood up behind a podium and explained how he has dedicated his life to develop such devices since undergoing a double amputation at the age of 17.
IN AN INTERVIEW at the conference, the agile 45-year-old expert in biomechanics and biological motion control predicted that in a few years, as his wearable prosthetic devices become more common, people will not stare at them any more than they would gawk at a cellphone today.
Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania as the youngest of five children in a Mennonite family, Herr started mountain climbing at the age of seven; the following year, he already had the peak of Canada's 3,800-meter Mount Temple under his belt, and near the end of high school was regarded as one of the best climbers in the US.
In January, 1982, he started to climb icy Mount Washington in New Hampshire with a friend, but they were caught in a blizzard and stuck for three nights in sub-zero temperatures. A volunteer rescuer died in an avalanche, the friend suffered the amputation of a lower leg, toes on the other leg and fingers.
Herr was left in March without both legs below the knees. "I was disoriented during the blizzard on the mountain and got frostbite." After surgery," he recalled, "I was home for a month and then spent a month learning to walk on ordinary prosthetic legs and feet." Within weeks, he returned to mountain climbing, but was adamant that one day he would invent robotic prostheses that would enable him to climb better than flesh-and-blood limbs. Instead of feeling pity for the disabled, Herr wants such people to be envied; they will have "superhuman capabilities."
He attended Millerstown University of Pennsylvania for his bachelor's degree and then continued on to a master's degree in mechanical engineering at MIT (where he now works) and a doctorate in biophysics at Harvard. As a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, he pursued the development of advanced leg prostheses and orthoses that mimic the way the human leg works.
Herr, who has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers in the field of rehabilitation science and is the holder (or co-holder) of about a dozen patents for a computer-chip-controlled artificial knee (known commercially as Rheo Knee), assistive devices, a powered ankle-foot orthosis and the world's first powered ankle-foot prosthesis such as the one he wears.
THE COMPUTERIZED device is made of three different microprocessors,12 sensors and a frame of aluminum, titanium and rubber. It is powered by modular batteries that snap in and out and are recharged once a day. Skin-like rubber coatings are available at extra charge to look like a real foot, but Herr says he and many others "prefer the robotic look. At a certain point, people appreciate the machine. It is beautiful," he declared.
The microprocessors and sensors assess and adjust the position of the ankle and other factors, while algorithms generate human-like force while accessing stairs, flat ground and inclines. His feet will soon have a neural interface that can communicate with muscles in the stumps of his legs. The robotic devices allow him to walk smoothly, with no hint of a disability; in fact, during his lecture at the conference, he declared that he did not feel at all disabled.
His invention allows him to grip snow-coated rocks on mountains that would be almost impossible to negotiate with human feet, change his height to clutch holds that he couldn't before, and compete against climbers who are able bodied.
TODAY, HERR is director of the biomechatronics group at the MIT- Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He has worked with several companies to develop and manufacture the prostheses and orthoses, including the Ossur company's artificial-intelligence-directed Rheo Knee Prosthesis and the Powered ankle-foot prosthesis and orthosis at iWalk. He said that the synthetic foot, on which he and his team worked for four years and lets people have a natural gait, will go into production soon. Herr just closed a round of financing for corporate expansion. Five years ago, the knee was included by Time magazine in the list of Top Ten Inventions in the health category, while the foot prosthesis earned a place in the same list in 2007.
He is well aware of the enormous need for his products not only in the developed world where war injuries, road accidents, diabetic foot, stroke, rheumatic diseases and other conditions lead to amputations, immobility or paralysis. There are large number of adults and children in developing countries disabled by land mines, war, terror and diseases who need his prostheses and orthoses.
"The actual raw materials for the foot cost around $150, but they are sold for tens of thousands of dollars. In poor countries, sophisticated local manufacturing plants could bring down the cost tremendously," Herr suggested.
HERR DOESN'T want to stop there; he believes that robots that interact with people will revolutionize life. They can be used instead of doctors to ask embarrassing questions; they could of course take on household chores and further liberate women, the elderly and the disabled. Herr predicted in his lecture that brain implants much smaller than a thumb nail could sense neural data and provide thought control of computerized objects.
Robots will be worn to take over the work of diseased or damaged limbs. They could even serve as easy-maintenance pets and take responsibility for caring for and educating children. Herr once built a "robotic fish" that swims in water.
