Bionic Athletes Put Assistive Technology to the Test

ETH Zurich and Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research Robotics professor Robert Riener certainly had a set of lofty goals after reading about a patient with a powered knee prosthesis who walked up Chicago’s Willis tower in early 2013. In one fell swoop, Riener wanted to stimulate conversation between academics and the medtech industry, bring about discussion among developers and the disabled, and tout the benefits of robotic assistive equipment to the public. Not an easy task by any means.

To accomplish these formidable challenges, in April 2014, Riener filmed a trailer for the first event of its kind—an Olympics-style set of competitions exclusively featuring athletes using robotic assistive technologies like powered prosthetics and robotic exoskeletons. Once news of his “Cybathlon” broke, it began to draw worldwide media attention. The event later this year “will bring together 80 teams of users, researchers, and the tech manufacturing industry to think about what is really needed to make technology that solves the everyday problems those living with disabilities face,” stated an article about the event published in The Conversation.

Though it’s framed as the “bionic Olympics,” the Cybathlon aims to be more demonstrative than competitive. The event will feature powered arm prosthesis races, in which four “pilots” (competitors) race to accomplish a series of six tasks. But we’re not talking hand-to-hand combat or bionic arm wrestling here; athletes compete head-to-head in everyday chores like cooking breakfast and carrying packages across a “household environment” course. That way, it’s not so much the person being tested as the device.

The Cybathlon has thus far drawn in a slew of powered assistive devices to compete, ranging from commercially available products (the ReWalk and Ekso GT powered exoskeletons, for example), to startups early on in their flagship device’s research and development stage. The competition could potentially eliminate a significant amount of startup companies’ costly R&D time by providing a well-attended proving ground in which to test the efficacy and usability of a device.

M.A.S.S. Impact, a Canadian company, is one such organization testing its prototype’s mettle in the Powered Arm Prosthesis Race. “The classification scheme necessary to control the prosthesis must account for a wide range of positions and motions that would occur in daily life,” M.A.S.S. Impact told ETH Zurich. “Finding a way to differentiate between intention and misclassification in an unconstraint environment remains to be one of the largest challenges.”

One particularly noteworthy race employs Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), a technique that permits paralyzed muscles to move again. Pilots with spinal cord injury, whose brain and leg muscles can no longer communicate, are connected to an intelligent controller that allows them to pedal on a modified cycling device. In this race, any power must be generated with muscles alone—no motorized bikes are allowed. And it’s not the pilot who has to worry about muscle fatigue: Teams competing in the FES race must create stimulation patterns that don’t tire the pilot’s muscles too quickly.

“Our motivation is to apply as much engineering technology as we can to make mobile FES cycling a feasible and sufficiently advanced rehabilitation procedure that could be clinically usable, beneficial for health, and personally enjoyable for patients,” Swiss company IRPT, which is competing in the FES race, told ETH Zurich. “The idea of creating something applicable is motivating and an event or a competition like the Cybathlon keeps your work focused. It is a real catalyst for our research program.”

Which leads to arguably the most important facet of the whole competition: A “clinical trial” of sorts demonstrating a powered assistive device’s capability for improving everyday life and highlighting the shortcomings of current assistive technologies. “Through my rehabilitation research work with patients, I have seen how unsatisfactory current assistive technology is,” Riener noted to Engineering and Technology magazine in July. “Wheelchairs are still not maneuverable enough or are too bulky to get along outside and inside buildings. Leg prostheses are not powered, so people have problems climbing stairs or walking uphill, and arm prostheses are often not even accepted and used by people with amputations.”

The first Cybathlon premieres Oct. 8 in the SWISS Arena in Kloten. (It’s still not too late to buy tickets). But this event is far from the last.

“In short, we want to move people and technology forward,” Riener said. “In the long run, we are planning to organize various Cybathlon-related events, roadshows, school projects, and associated competitions.”