Allison interviews Sunny Xiaojun, founder and CEO of BionicM, about their prosthetic Bio Leg with a powered knee joint that makes walking more intuitive and natural.
The Bio Leg has a motor, battery, and several embedded motion sensors that allow it to determine the intent of the wearer and react accordingly. So, for example, as the wearer begins to take a step forward, the Bio Leg senses this and gives the knee joint an assist to aid the step forward.
Bio Leg’s sensing of movement and a motorized assist reduces the effort required to walk and makes walking more natural with balance and symmetry. Sunny, who wears the Bio Leg, explained that with his previous passive prosthetic leg, his average step count per day was around 3,000. Wearing the Bio Leg, Sunny averages around 5,000 steps per day due to the ease and natural movement of his walk.
You can sign up for a Bio Leg trial fitting at the link below.
Learn more at https://bionicm.com/
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Allison: I’m here with Sunny from BionicM and he’s explaining that he owns a bionic knee that he is not only the co-founder or founder of the company that created it but he’s also a patient wearing one right now.
Sunny: Yeah I’m Sunny the founder and CEO of BionicM also a patient wearing our own product for over three years.
Allison: So tell us about this. This is a Bionic limb that’s gone from your knee down is it actually the knee joint itself?
Sunny: Yes so this is totally different from current product on the market. So on the market most of them are passive which means there’s only bone and joint without muscle. So you can imagine what will happen if you lose your muscle that’s terrible. This one has a muscle that make a big difference.
Allison: So it’s muscle what do you mean by that?
Sunny: So there’s a motor, battery, many sensors inside. So this sensor can detect user intent and movement and then the motor is controlled to give a power to have patient do something they couldn’t do with current product.
Allison: So you’ve got your upper leg and then is it are there nerves muscles attached from your leg to this joint to give it the intent?
Sunny: Right now it’s not connected to our nerve but there are many sensors inside so this sensor can detect my intent and my movement.
Allison: Where’s that intent information coming from?
Sunny: So for example there’s a ankle sensor to detect my angle there’s a force sensor to detect my force and the moment in X Y and Z direction. There’s a IMU sensor which can detect my acceleration and incline.
Allison: I see what you’re saying I think I’m catching on now. So it’s this also looks like it’s carbon fiber?
Sunny: Yeah this cover is made by carbon fiber. Yeah it’s quite durable.
Allison: Now what other what other knee joints did you try before you decided I got to invent something for myself?
Sunny: Before I use those I use some passive one which was not so good. So that’s the reason I want to make something different for myself.
Allison: So the passive ones have no idea what it is you’re trying to do with your leg they just sort of flop along or what?
Sunny: Yes so because it’s passive so I have to use my own body to drive the process. It’s very easy to get tired and it’s also very easy to to to fall down sometimes. So this one is more safe it’s more difficult to get tired. In the past my average step per day is 3,000 now it’s 5,000. That’s a huge difference.
Allison: Wow from how many thousand to 5,000?
Sunny: 3,000 to 5,000.
Allison: Wow that is amazing. So let’s see I had a genius question I was coming up with now can we look at can we look at how it’s
Sunny: Yeah you can yeah so I can show you
Allison: Yeah he’s gonna walk first. He’s marching across the hallway here.
Sunny: Yeah so I walk fast.
Allison: Yeah I’m having trouble keeping up with him running across this. Yeah yeah, and it doesn’t hurt?
Sunny: Yeah no so it can adapt to my speed very intuitively and very smooth.
Allison: Now this is a silly question do you have to charge your leg?
Sunny: Yes so it can last 22 hours for one charge so I need to charge yeah every other day. Yeah yeah yeah.
Allison: Did you ever think you’d live in a world where you said words like I have to charge my book charge my car and charge my leg?
Sunny: Yes so it’s quite similar to charge my yeah charge my phone charge my car quite similar. Charge my leg.
Allison: So if people wanted to learn more about Bioleg where would they go?
Sunny: Yeah you can reach out by visiting our homepage www.bionic.com.
Allison: Very good and is this available in the market today?
Sunny: Yes we got FDA and we also got the insurance approval last year. It’s available commercially in the US market from September last year.
Allison: Very good thank you very much for sharing your story with us Sunny this is interesting.
Sunny: Yeah thank you.