UIET, Panjab University, Chandigarh faculty bags prestigious SERB, DST research grant 

Chandigarh, January 27, 2023: Dr. Prashant Jindal(Principal Investigator), Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department with Dr. Mamta Juneja (Co-Investigator), Associate Professor, Computer Science Engineering at UIET, Panjab University And Dr. Nirmal Raj Gopinathan (Co-Investigator),Orthopaedic Surgeon and Professor, PGIMER, Chandigarh have been sanctioned a research grant of Rs.37.95 Lacs  from SERB, DST under the area-Wearable Electronics For Biomedical Applications for a period of 3 years to design a state of art and cost effective human prosthetic arm.

Faculty from UIET in partnership with PGIMER have been working in this area over the past few years and after going through the prototyping stage are now going to develop a fully functional biomedical signal operated prosthetic arm to serve the handicapped society.

This innovation would provide a solution to patients, who will operate using an artificial limb in the form of a prosthetic arm, which would mimic the functioning of a natural human arm.

In India out of 135.68 Cr population,2.28 Cr people suffer with some kind of disability. Further, there are about 0.5 million amputees, with around 23500 new amputees added each year. Total number of persons with an amputation, and those using a below elbow upper limb prosthesis, increased at least 47% in the last 6 years. Indian market for Orthopaedic prosthetic devices is nearly $1.8 billion. A 3D printed prosthetic arm would cost nearly £5000(Rs 4.5 lakh),as against £30000 (Rs27 lakh) to £60000 (Rs54 Lakh) for a regular one. 

The team has plans to enable grip, motion, gesture etc. features which would be actuated using brain and muscle signals of the human body.

This grant has been an offshoot from their work at Design Innovation Centre(DIC) which has been working and producing several such innovative products in the field of medical devices. Many engineering students have been working in development of this project, which has helped them in honing their technical skills and acumen.

The team claimed, “The outcomes of this project will not only improve the quality of lives of the disabled but will also foster a cost-effective artificial limbs manufacturing industry.”