The work of Professor Peter Bishay and his college students all the time attracts a crowd on the annual Senior Design Project Showcase, which takes place this 12 months on May 1st on the Autodesk Technology Engagement Center.
At the August ribbon slicing for CSUN’s Autodesk Technology Engagement Center, friends touring the state-of-the-art area acquired an up-close have a look at mechanical engineering college students’ practically 10-year quest to construct a higher prosthetic arm. The array of arms and fingers displayed are the work of Professor Peter Bishay and dozens of engineering college students through the years.
What began with college students’ want for a senior challenge and Bishay’s curiosity in experimenting with a new “smart” materials has develop into rather more than an instructional train. It resulted in a physique of analysis revealed in skilled journals and a patent pending for a revolutionary controller — all to make a higher expertise for individuals utilizing the prosthetics which might be usually deserted as a result of they’re too heavy or difficult to use.
The work has expanded in recent times to a multi-disciplinary effort with professors and college students from the kinesiology and psychology departments. They’re growing an revolutionary coaching program, utilizing digital actuality (VR). The purpose is to create a game-like atmosphere, easing the stress of studying a complicated machine.
Surrounded by examples of prosthetics and pictures of every cohort of scholars, Bishay spoke with CSUN Newsroom concerning the highlights from the nine-year challenge, how their analysis helps others within the discipline and how this system has developed.
How It Started
Bishay was requested in 2017 to offer a senior design challenge for a group of scholars — no matter challenge he appreciated. At the time, Bishay, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, was studying analysis papers about shape-memory alloy supplies which have multi-functionality.
“I was reading a paper about shape memory alloys and how they can be used in prosthetic arms,” he defined. “And then I found out that there are some mechanical engineering students who are interested in medical devices and biomedical engineering. At the same time, I was limited in space … So, I decided to establish the SMART Prosthetics Senior Design Project in 2017. And our approach at that time was to design a biomimetic, transradial [below the elbow] prosthetic arm.”
Advancing the Technology: Published Research and More
The first cohort, made up of eighteen undergraduate college students and Bishay, published a research paper in 2020 on their work utilizing 3D-printed bones related by versatile joints, all inside a silicon “flesh” and actuated through form reminiscence alloy (SMA) “muscle” wires, fairly than utilizing motors to function the arm.
“This paper [has been] cited multiple times since it was published,” Bishay defined. “Last year, for example, some researchers extended this idea to further develop a design of a hand that has much more degrees of freedom than our hand. Their paper was published in Nature Communications journal, and they cited our paper. So, our ideas benefited a lot of people,” he mentioned.
Smart Prosthetics fifth cohort got here up with a new kind of controller for the arm in 2021. Typically, prosthetic arms are operated with myoelectric sensors, which might be positioned on the remaining a part of the amputated limb (the residual limb). Bishay famous the drawbacks, which contribute to a excessive variety of sufferers abandoning use of their prosthetics.
“First of all, if these sensors move left or right, they might not be as accurate since they are supposed to target specific muscle groups,” he mentioned. “Also, those who have no residual limbs at all, or no muscles in the residual limb, cannot use this technology that is currently dominating the market of prostheses.”
The resolution? Bishay and college students developed a foot controller. Users press two buttons with their toes to carry out a number of capabilities.
“Whether you one click, double click, long click with the toes, you can do different things with the prosthetic arm fingers,” he defined. “It’s wireless. It’s immediate. and it is very easy.”
Students used an AI device, known as Generative Design, created by Autodesk, inside the Fusion computer-aided design software program, to engineer new elements for the arm they designed.
“So you can say, for example, I want to put a servo motor here, I want to have four screws here…. you just specify what you want and it will grow the design for you,” Bishay mentioned. The generated design is optimized to have the lightest weight whereas nonetheless being able to carrying all specified masses with a margin of security that the person would outline.
Student Involvement
Each cohort through the years consisted of 15-16 college students. Kurt Trocino, 24, a senior mechanical engineering main, joined the challenge in 2025. He defined that the scholars are divided into totally different sub-teams, together with one for the mechanical system, one for the foot-controller system, and one for the haptic suggestions system. Trocino mentioned college students select their group, based mostly on what they want to be taught, in addition to their strengths.
“My sub-team has a couple of people that are really good with coding. I’m pretty gifted on the mechanical side of things,” Trocino mentioned. “And we have one guy who’s like a jack-of-all-trades, who understands the electrical and the software and the mechanical.”
Trocino is presently a group lead for the foot-controller group. He is without doubt one of the presenters on behalf of the group, and will accomplish that once more at CSUNPosium, a scholar convention and showcase that includes college students’ scholarly analysis and inventive exercise, held this 12 months on April 10. After commencement in May, Trocino will start work as an meeting manufacturing engineer at Teledyne Technologies, which develops a number of engineered methods for aerospace, protection and industrial markets.
“For the job interview itself, I had to give a 20-minute presentation on my relevant technical experience, and one of the project examples that I talked about was my contributions to my senior design team,” he mentioned.
What’s Next?
In addition to refining their work on the foot controller and the arm, Bishay is specializing in the multi-disciplinary efforts on digital actuality coaching. He’s joined forces with three professors from the kinesiology and psychology departments. The group submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation again in 2022, and was awarded a three-year grant to proceed the work.
“It’s taking out some of those psychological barriers,” Bishay mentioned. “You feel that you are alone in this VR world. If anything happens, it’s just a game.”
Bishay and his college students are additionally forging forward on a system to assist customers “feel” totally different textures. A group of scholars is devoted to designing this haptic suggestions system, an innovation that will change how individuals work together with their prostheses and encourage long-term use.
Bishay’s satisfaction and enthusiasm for the initiatives shines by as he explains and demonstrates the arms that he and college students have developed and shared with researchers through the years.
“Most of the scholars have the sensation that ‘I want to use my engineering skills to help others,’” he said. “We are coming up with great innovations, integrating virtual reality, AI and all these new technologies in the work that we’re doing, and that’s superb.”