EC Grant FP7 Project "CYBERLEGS - The Cybernetic lower-limb cognitive ortho-prosthesis"

The aim of the CYBERLEGs project is to develop an artificial cognitive system for trans-femoral amputees’ lower-limb functional replacement and assistance. CYBERLEGs wants to research ways of cognitive control, motivated and validated trough the ortho-prosthesis scenario, of a multi-degree-of-freedom system with both lower-limb replacing and assistive capacities. The project will develop know-how on how human can interface a semi-autonomous robotic device which supports the amputee in executing locomotion-related tasks (e.g. walking, stairs climbing), including transients (e.g. start, stop, sit-to-stand, etc. …), in a real life unstructured environment. Research activities within CYBERLEGs aim at pursuing metabolic, cognitive and energy efficiency. CYBERLEGs will be built with the aim of decreasing the cardiovascular and muscular load on the amputee, to allow the user to use the robotic aid on a whole-day basis (metabolic efficiency).

The control system of CYBERLEGs will be based on motor primitives as fundamental buildings block, thus endowing CYBERLEGs with semiautonomous behaviour for planning the motion of the prosthesis joints and the assistive action of the orthosis module.

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