IOE 836 Seminar Series: Albert Shih, Ph.D. (University of Michigan)

Title: Individual Design and Production of Assistive Devices for Improving Mobility Abstract: Advancements in medical imaging, additive manufacturing (3D-printing), carbon fiber materials, cloud computing, cyber-based design, iniature motion sensors, and modeling for personalized design have enabled a new approach to design and manufacturing the individualized assistive devices for mobility (ADM). The vision of future ADM fabricated by the distributed additive manufacturing in clinics, designed using modeling software in the cyber design center, and embedded with sensors for motion capturing is presented. Examples of the ankle-foot orthoses (AFO) is introduced to illustrate such manufacturing system. The carbon fiber composite AFO is 3D-printed using the fused deposition modeling (FDM) method. Contact models are developed to convert CT/MRI medical images to 3D model to predict the contact pressure. Challenges in integration of these models in the cyber design center and cost of 3D-printing of ADM will be discussed.