Atlantica - 01.01.2006, Síða 56

54 AT L A N T I CA
The Bionic Revolution
Spend enough time in the headquarters of
Össur and you begin to think maybe the 70s
TV show The Six Million Dollar Man was not so
farfetched after all.
Stand by the water cooler and you might
hear things like “The Dynamic Learning Matrix
Algorithm” or “the Magnetorheologic Fluid
Actuator uses magnetic fields to vary resistance”
nonchalantly float off the tongues of the R&D and
product management employees, as if they were
talking about staplers or three-hole punches.
Össur has long been breaking ground in the
field of prosthetics. It is a global leader in the
development, manufacturing, distribution, sales
and marketing of high technology prosthetic and
orthopedic devices. And with the development of
the Power Knee, an innovative power prosthetic
joint, Össur believes it has taken the next step in
the development of its bionic technology.
The next step? When did Össur take the first
one? And what is bionic technology anyway?
Bionics is best thought of as the crossroads
where biology and technology meet. The Rheo
Knee™, Össur’s first bionic product to reach the
market, is a prime example of this intersection.
Essentially, the Rheo Knee uses microsensors
to analyze the way an amputee walks at 1,000
times per second and then, using artificial intel-
ligence, adjusts its motion to a person’s natural
gait, delivering the proper amount of resistance
during each step.
The Rheo Knee allows you to “walk your way,”
explains Kim De Roy, product manager at Össur.
“The more you walk, the more the knee learns
and the better it adapts to your individual walking
pattern.”
What separates Össur from other industry lead-
ers is the amount of money the company dedi-
cates towards R&D, which was about 11 percent
when Össur was developing the Rheo Knee, a
figure that rivals pharmaceutical companies.
According to Jón Sigurdsson, Össur’s CEO, the
company’s long-term goal is to bring R&D back in
line, making the company more cost effective, and
The prosthetic and orthopedic company Össur was recently honored by
Popular Science magazine for its groundbreaking Power Knee™, a prosthetic
knee joint using artificial intelligence to predict a user’s movements. Artificial
intelligence? Welcome to the bionics revolution, writes Edward Weinman.
to invest about six to eight percent in R&D.
“This gives us an unbelievable edge – a big-
time edge, and it will continue to do so,” Mr.
Sigurdsson says.
The company is not only highly competitive,
the products it brings to market change the lives
of its numerous users. In the US, more than
150,000 people each year join the over four mil-
lion existing amputees.
“It really adds to the job satisfaction to be able
to help people,” explains Mr. Sigurdsson.
Of course, cutting-edge technology means
that products like the Rheo Knee are expensive,
costing the user up to USD 16,000. Hey, artificial
intelligence isn’t cheap.
The Rheo Knee has certainly changed the lives
of its users. But as revolutionary as the Rheo
Knee is – its reaction time to motion is nearly
as fast as our neurological reaction time – the
device is a passive knee joint. It doesn’t provide
any active power.
That’s why the NEW Power Knee literally
takes the next step. The device – recently hon-
ored by Popular Science magazine with a 2005
Best of What’s New award in the Personal
Health category – is like a motorized muscle that
replaces the thigh muscle, serving as the knee
and thigh, connecting to the prosthetic foot.
“You can walk up steps,” Mr. De Roy says,
showing me the video of an amputee easily
cruising up a flight of stairs.
This might not sound terribly groundbreak-
ing to a non-amputee. After all, it’s not like
amputees have never walked up stairs before.
The difference, though, is that instead of drag-
ging the prosthetic, the Power Knee actually lifts
the amputee up the next step, providing mus-
cular power. Even more important is the way
the Power Knee assists the user in level ground
walking. The prosthesis propels the user into his
next step, enabling the amputee to walk farther,
with less effort and less stress on the healthy leg,
the hips and the back.
The development of the Power Knee is the
“wow moment” for the industry, Mr. De Roy
insists.
Watching the video of a golfer make his way
up a steep incline, his bag of clubs slung over his
shoulder, the Power Knee doesn’t look like some-
thing Steve Austin might have used on his tacky
TV show. No, its sleek design, replete with artifi-
cial intelligence, looks more like something out of
the film Blade Runner.
If Össur has reached the “wow moment,” with
the Power Knee (the Power Knee should be on the
market by spring 2006), what’s next on the hori-
zon? The regeneration of limbs?
Don’t laugh. The final slide in Össur’s presenta-
tion shows a photo of a salamander beneath the
header “Applied Bionics Future Vision”.
While bone and tissue regeneration might, at
the moment, only exist in a sci-fi film script, Össur
has realized the first two stages of its revolutionary
bionics program: advanced artificial intelligence
and powered prosthetics that achieve the goal of
restoring walking dynamics, a feat only imagined
five to ten years ago.
“If you had asked me five to ten years ago where
I would like us to be, I would’ve said power pros-
thetics. And now we have one,” Mr. De Roy says.
What’s next on the horizon? Össur sees a day
when prosthetics are connected to your nerves,
defined as neurosensing. This basically means that
when you think about moving your leg, the leg
will move.
While neurosensing might sound a bit futur-
istic, this is where the technology is leading the
industry.
“There is more research on neurosensing than
you might believe. Our bionic line is designed with
neurosensing in mind,” says Mr. Sigurdsson.
The scientific freedom that is enjoyed in
Scandinavia, coupled with Össur’s forward-think-
ing philosophy, enables the company to dream
big. And with the rapid development of the bionic
technology platform (still in its infancy) that has
given amputees the Power Knee, perhaps that slide
of the salamander is not so far off in the future. a

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