Lab — American
Johns Hopkins APL, Modular Prosthetic Limb
Official site → Laurel, MD, USA
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, built the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL). A 2018 clinical evaluation paper says the MPL was developed through the DARPA Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program to provide up to 26 articulating degrees of freedom through 17 actuators from shoulder to hand, with sensory feedback via vibrotactile sensors.
- APL Technical Digest, 2011, on the MPL developmental process: https://secwww.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/Content/techdigest/pdf/V30-N03/30-3-Johannes.pdf
- Initial clinical evaluation of the MPL (Frontiers in Neurology, 2018): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2018.00153/full
Device entries
- 7 degree-of-freedom neuroprosthetic arm (Collinger, 2013): the participant controlled the MPL with two 96-channel intracortical arrays. The 2013 paper names the limb as the Modular Prosthetic Limb from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Related brief
Limits
APL built the limb, not the brain interface. The 2018 paper tests the MPL with surface electromyography in two people with below-elbow amputations, which is a different control method from the intracortical study.