Iraq War to Engender Cyberveterans

Biomechatronics
PROSTHETICS:
Thanks to Jim, aka garyglitterpants, for this link. According to the article, there's a demand for robotic prosthesis for US soldiers injured in the Iraq War.

"Mating robotics with the nervous system creates a new generation of artificial limbs that work like the real thing. By Corie Lok.

"Conventional leg prostheses frequently leave their users, especially above-the-knee amputees, stumbling and falling or walking with abnormal gaits. Hugh Herr, a professor at MIT’s Media Laboratory, is building more-reliable prostheses that users can control more precisely. Some of the latest prosthetic knees on the market already have microprocessors built into them that can be programmed to help the limbs move more naturally. But Herr has taken this idea one step further. He has developed a knee with built-in sensors that can measure how far the knee is bent, as well as the amount of force the user applies to it while walking. This artificial knee--recently commercialized by the Icelandic company Össur--also contains a computer chip that analyzes the sensor data to create a model of the user’s gait, and adapt the movement and resistance of the knee accordingly."