Utah Bionic Leg named a 2023 ‘best invention’ by TIME magazine
Oct 27, 2023, 5:43 PM
FILE: Doctoral student Suzi Creveling talks about her work on the Utah Bionic Leg on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. The Utah Bionic Leg was just named as one of the best inventions of 2023 by TIME Magazine. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
(Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Bionic Leg was just named one of the best inventions of 2023 by TIME Magazine.
Developed by Tommaso Lenzi, associate professor at the University of Utah’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the HGN Bionic Engineering Lab, the Utah Bionic Leg uses motors, processors and advanced artificial intelligence that work in concert to give amputees the power and mobility to do things that might seem routine to the average person, such as walk, stand up, sit down, walk up and down stairs and ramps and even traverse uneven ground.
Lenzi said that the technologies that make up the bionic leg “fundamentally work like the muscle cells in the nervous system of the leg.”
Typically, amputees rely heavily on their upper body and intact leg to compensate for the lack of assistance from their prescribed prosthetics. This isn’t as much of an issue with the Utah Bionic Leg, as the extra power from the prosthesis makes mobility easier.
“The ‘passive’ joints in traditional prostheses can’t fully replicate the biomechanical functions of a biological leg,” Lenzi said. “This makes walking substantially harder, especially on inclines or when climbing stairs. It also leads to users compensating for their prostheses’ deficiencies with other parts of their bodies. (This) can cause secondary complications, such as back pain and osteoarthritis.”
The Utah Bionic Leg was named to TIME’s “Experimental” category.
Please read Logan Stefanich’s complete story at KSL.com.
