This award is for support of a cooperative project by Dr. Aly Farag, Associate Professor School of Engineering at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and a team headed by Dr. Ahmed El-Bialy, Associate Professor in the Department of Systems and Biomedical Engineering at Cairo University, Egypt. The two sides plan to develop a below-elbow myoelectric prosthesis that will be simple and inexpensive to suit the markets in developing countries. Studies will cover surveys and estimates of the existing market and unit costs in Egypt for the currently available and imported devices, study of the available devices to use as a base to individually redesign and implement each of its components, study and design of software to simulate the various parameters of operations such as gripping and wrist rotation, and finally testing the new devices and software in actual cases.
Scope: This award will allow collaboration between Egyptian and US scientists who have significant complementary technical background and expertise to carry out the proposed project. Dr. Farag is experienced in 3-D model building in computer vision and in simulation. Dr. El-Bialy and his team are well experienced in several areas of biomedical and biomechanical systems. They are also familiar with the conditions of users in developing world countries and able to provide the resources needed for the field testing of the final products. The project may provide new designs and the software that can be used effectively to greatly improve the lives of amputees with the resources available in developing countries. This proposal meets the INT objective of increasing US-foreign collaboration in areas that benefit both sides. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.
