Cutting-edge research on the bionic hand, the European Commission funds with an ERC Proof of Concept MYTI, the new project coordinated by Christian Cipriani for the clinical translation of the human-machine interface developed in the MYKI project

New research project for the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna on bionic hands. The European Research Council is funding with an ERC Proof of Concept the MYTI project coordinated by Christian Cipriani, full professor of industrial bioengineering at the BioRobotics Institute. The project aims to promote the technology developed in the MYKI ERC project for natural and intuitive control of a prosthetic hand at a clinical level. With this new funding, the European Research Council (ERCEA) recognised the originality of Cipriani and his research team's approach to 'myokinetic' control of prostheses.

The innovative human-machine interface based on implantable magnets

MYTI, an acronym for MYokinetic Towards Innovation, aims to apply improvements to the technology developed in the MYKI project to facilitate the clinical translation of the human-machine interface for the control of upper limb prostheses. The system developed by Christian Cipriani's research team is based on a multitude of permanent magnets implanted in the residual muscles capable of decoding voluntary motor commands and transmitting sensory feedback to the individual. Specifically, external electronic components acquire the magnetic field of the magnets, retrieve their displacement resulting from muscle contraction and then decode the user's intention to control multiple degrees of freedom of the prosthesis in a natural and intuitive way.
The MYKI project concluded with the first clinical trial of the interface: a patient received the implant for six weeks and was able to control a myokinetic prosthesis autonomously. With MYTI, which will run for 18 months, the focus will be on improving the technology and the long-term usability of the interface.