Couple the Defense Research Projects Agency’s major and well-funded interest in prosthetics with the grit shown by amputee veterans to excel in sports and you’ve got a heck of start for building a U.S. team for the first-ever bionic Olympics.
The Cybathlon, an international competition for athletes using advanced prosthetics, is to be held in October 2016 in Zurich, Switzerland.
“The competitions are comprised by different disciplines that apply the most modern powered knee prostheses, wearable arm prostheses, powered exoskeletons, powered wheelchairs, electrically stimulated muscles and novel brain-computer interfaces,” according to the games’ official website.
The games are being organized on behalf of the Swiss National Competence Center of Research in Robotics.
DARPA has a number of programs that ultimately, benefit not only the active-duty soldier, but the injured veteran who remains determined live with as few limitations as possible. DARPA has been hot at work on advanced prosthetics – legs, arms, hands – and exoskeletons.
Could hardly be a better opportunity to field test some of these technologies than a kind of Olympics specifically for men and women using them.
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