Principal Investigator Hugh Herr
Project Website http://biomech.media.mit.edu/#/portfolio_page/socket-fit/
Towards the goal of developing more comfortable, better-fitting wearable devices, tools are being developed that can sense the properties of soft-tissues in human limbs.
Sockets–the cup-shaped devices that attach an amputated limb to a lower-limb prosthesis–are made through unscientific, artisanal methods that do not have repeatable quality and comfort from one individual with amputation to the next. The FitSocket project aims to identify the correlation between leg tissue properties and the design of a comfortable socket. We accomplish this by creating a robotic socket measurement device called the FitSocket which can directly measure tissue properties. With this data, we can rapid-prototype test sockets and socket molds in order to make rigid, spatially variable stiffness, and spatially/temporally variable stiffness sockets.