In Good Hands

Professor Kevin Fite creates assistive devices and prosthetics for people with physical impairments or limb loss.

by Suzanne F. Smith

Today, the emergence of advanced robotic technologies and sophisticated 3-D printing techniques is revolutionizing the field of rehabilitation engineering.

And that promises to significantly impact the mobility and independence of the estimated two million Americans living with amputations.

Kevin Fite, an associate professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering and an expert in electromechanical systems, has been working on prosthetic limb development and adaptive technologies for nearly 10 years.

“We’ve done work in both upper- and lower-extremity device development,” he says. “Much of that work is designing robot systems that can replicate the function of what a human leg or knee would provide for a lowerlimb amputee, for example, or an arm or hand, in the case of someone who has lost all or part of an upper limb.”

Essential to that work is the design of command and control systems that help users “communicate” with the prosthetic limb to improve movement and functionality. Fite is using an electromyography-based control approach in which measured muscle activity in the residual limb is utilized as input commands to the prosthetic limb.

“The objective,” he says, “is an artificial limb that behaves as a natural extension of the amputee’s residual limb.”

While robotics is improving usability and functionality, advances in additive manufacturing are making it easier for scientists and engineers to custom design prostheses while reducing costs.

A Robot Hand

As an infant, eight-year-old Gavin Coffey had a traumatic hand injury. The result was the loss of his ring and fourth fingers, as well as part of the thumb, on his left hand. This loss affects his fine motor skills and makes it difficult for Gavin to manipulate, hold and grasp objects. So tying his shoelaces or using scissors is a challenge.

An early surgical intervention did not help. “Gavin had a toe-tothumb transplant when he was younger, but it was unsuccessful,” says his mother, Tricia Coffey. “That led us to look into prosthetics.”

What Gavin today calls his “robot hand” was developed in Fite’s laboratory. The prosthesis relies on a mechanical system to leverage the motion of Gavin’s existing hand parts and his wrist.

“The device is coupled to Gavin’s existing fingers and acts as an extra set of mechanical fingers, which move with his two uninjured fingers,” explains Fite.

With his robot hand, Gavin’s grip and grasp function extends well beyond what he could previously do with his two-finger grasp.

The prosthetic device was created using additive manufacturing, the industrial version of 3-D printing. The desktop machine prints with different thermoplastics to create the plastic finger components for Gavin’s prosthesis.

Gavin and his parents returned numerous times to Fite’s lab as different iterations of his robot hand were developed by Fite and his students. “He wears it for a few weeks and then reports back on how he uses it and what function it is providing. Then we fine-tune the design, fit and function based on Gavin’s and his parents’ feedback,” notes Fite.

“We have focused on a mechanical system to provide Gavin with functionality, but further down the road, we might have to develop a robotics system with a command and control interface, especially as we begin to work on the thumb, which will be very challenging.”

For now, Gavin’s robot hand is giving him the kind of function he needs to grip a hockey or lacrosse stick, catch a football and open a soda.

“I like the red color,” says Gavin, “and my friends think it’s cool.”

That may be the highest praise Fite and his team of students could ask for.

As part of a two-semester integrated design course, three seniors in the Department of Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering worked with Gavin and his family this past year to design, develop and print the prosthetic fingers. “We had a prototype, and we worked with Gavin and his family to develop an improved prosthetic,” says Steve Perry ’17. “We had some design challenges immediately because the original molds had to be resized since his hand is still growing.” (l-r) Steve Perry ’17 and John Sullivan ’17 Missing: Ahmad Hasan ’17

Faculty Awards

In 2017, two Clarkson faculty were honored with the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award:

Assistant Professor of Chemistry & Biomolecular Science He Dong’s research focuses on constructing biomaterials based on the selfassembly of peptides/proteins and block-copolymers for a wide range of biomedical applications, including drug, gene/siRNA and vaccine delivery and antimicrobial therapy development. Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering Jie Li’s research investigates new approaches to comprehensively model characteristics of emerging electricity distribution systems and explores operation strategies for enhancing the sustainability and resiliency of these distribution systems.

Over the last 10 years, 10 in 10 10 Clarkson faculty have been recognized with NSF CAREER awards.

Stem Cell Research

Kenneth Wallace, associate professor of biology, was awarded a National Institutes of Health grant to investigate the development of intestinal stem cells using a zebrafish vertebrate model system.

While much has been discovered about how stem cells are controlled during the adult phase, much less is known about the origins of these stem cell compartments or when stem cells form and how they are regulated.

Advances in Fluid Mechanics

Assistant Professor of Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering Parisa Mirbod is working on a bioinspired strategy to dramatically reduce the drag of particle-laden liquids over planar surfaces.

Another project will examine the instability of suspensions in a system in the existence of porous materials. Her work is funded through the Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Better Outcomes for Heart Patients

With NSF funding, Assistant Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Yuncheng Du is creating computer programs that will help physicians determine patient-specific protocols that contribute to endstage heart failure, and assess treatment options and probable outcomes. Using Du’s software, a physician can systematically assess whether a patient with end-stage heart failure is eligible for or would benefit from a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation.

Invasive Species Modeling

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rana Parshad received a three-year NSF grant for research on mathematical modeling for controlling invasive aquatic species. The project will explore the Trojan Y-Chromosome (TYC) strategy, which hypothesizes that the introduction of a geneticallymodified sub-population into an invasive population will eradicate the target invasive species over time, while protecting native species.

Women in Engineering

Associate Professor of History Laura Ettinger has received an NSF grant for her research on American women engineers.

The project will investigate the careers and lives of American women engineers who graduated from college in the 1970s. The research will explain why women engineers have made the choices they have and how their choices have been constrained structurally and culturally. It will contribute to the collective understanding of how individual women might negotiate the constraints and how institutions might work to eliminate them.

This compilation of essays tells a story about the ways that epidemics, zoos, methamphetamine, disgruntled technicians, museums and whipping cream shaped the modern neurosciences. Co-editor Stephen Casper, associate professor of history.

Rochester Studies in Medical History University of Rochester Press