Abstract
Microcontrollers are ubiquitous in modern electronic products, powered prosthetic
components being no exception. Likewise, digital communication buses are the key technology
for interconnecting such smart devices for reasons such as reduced wiring requirements,
high information throughput, robustness in the presence of noise and flexibility.
This flexibility contains the potential of interoperability, which means that similar
components from different manufacturers may communicate in the same way so that one
can easily be replaced by another or components from different manufacturers can be
combined in one and the same system. However desirable this situation is, it requires
an open, sandardised communication protocol that is adhered to by the majority of
the manufacturers and research organisations. Presently no such standard exists in
the prosthetics industry, while it has existed in related fields such as wheelchairs
and environmental controllers for a number of years.
In this paper we propose such a bus standard, and outline the potential benefits for
end users, prosthetists and technicians, healthcare providers, manufacturers and researchers.
We then list several important aspects of a prosthesis bus that must be carefully
considered, and invite interested parties to engage in the completion of a draft specification.
Citation
Proceedings of the MEC’05 conference, UNB; 2005.
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