Chris Crisman


Hugh Herrkeeps six pairs of legs in his cupboard. Most days, he wears a set of bionic ankle-and-foot devices which are motorised, making them ideal for walking long distances. When trail-running, he swaps them for large C-shaped carbon legs ("Just like the ones Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius wears," he says). And for climbing he's got at least four different types. Some are designed for rocky cliffs and others for specific tasks: rubber feet for vertical walls, tapered blades to penetrate rock fissures and crampon-claws for icy surfaces. "I am made of aluminium, silicon, carbon composites and titanium," the 48-year-old says. "Depending on my activity, I can adapt."

Herr's love of physical exercise is purely recreational. At his day job as director of the Biomechatronics Group at MIT he researches the mechanics of movement and builds high-performance robot legs. His goal: to blur the lines between human disability and human augmentation, using technology. 

Herr's desire to design leg prostheses began in 1982 when a climbing accident left the then-17-year-old a double amputee. Although he was walking within months of his accident, the prostheses available in the early 80s were limited and inflexible. "Because I was desperate to climb again, I was pushed into fashioning my own limbs and testing them on myself," he says. Herr, who now has 14 patents related to prosthetic limbs, including a computerised knee and the BiOM ankle and foot, arrived at MIT in 1993 as a graduate student in mechanical engineering. His favourite phrase, he says, is: "There is no such thing as a disabled person, only disabled technologies."

The Biomechatronics lab addresses physical interfaces between humans and machines, and how these might be enhanced. Herr's team studies how best mechanically to attach prosthetics and braces to bodies, builds smart limbs that can adjust to a person's individual gait, and connects prosthetics back to the nervous system so that mechanical limbs can detect motor intent in the wearer.

Currently, Herr is working on the first problem: how to build a socket that attaches a robot limb to a person without inflicting pain. "If you ask a hundred leg amputees about the number-one problem they want solved, a hundred will say the socket," Herr says. "Millions of people are in pain, all because an advanced socket should exist and it doesn't." Modern sockets are simple carbon composites that are moulded into the shape of an amputee's stump using sculpting techniques. "We are dynamic creatures, so our interfaces can't be fixed," Herr says. He is currently working with Media Lab colleague and assistant professor of media arts and sciences Neri Oxman to build a flexible socket embedded with pressure sensors that can change shape when the stump swells or shrinks. In tests conducted on walking amputees, a prototype has reduced pressure from the socket by 20 percent, according to Herr. 

Oxman, who is an architect and designer, is Herr's climbing partner and has worked closely with him  since 2008. "He is a rare kind of thinker, because he can translate big visions into a set of detailed protocols," she says. The two are also working together on designing an exoskeleton with a spiderweb structure, to enhance climbers' athleticism. "The suit would be made of many springs -- as you stretch your muscles, the suit will also expand, turning your body into a giant, moving spring," says Oxman. 


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