Solav Biomechanical Interfaces Group
Towards enhanced comfort and health for prosthetics and orthotics users

The Lab

Our group studies the biomechanical interface between the human body and biomedical devices such as prosthetics and orthotics. Our main goal is to develop and optimize patient-specific devices in order to improve patient comfort, health, and function. To achieve this, we analyze the biomechanical factors that affect human movement and function, and develop new imaging and measurement tools, computational algorithms, experimental procedures, and fabrication methods.

New publication on anisotropic soft tissue material parameter characterization

Check out Amit Ashkenazi's new paper in Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids on Indentation-based identifiability of soft tissue anisotropic hyperelastic material parameters . In this work, we investigate how simultaneous measurement of indentation force-depth and full-field surface deformation affect the identifiability of anisotropic constitutive parameters, and evaluate the restuls experimentally using a transversely isotropic composite soft tissue phantom.

New publication on soft lattice structures

Check out Dror Raf's new paper in Mechanics of Materials on Soft orthotropic hyperelastic lattice structures . In this work, we develop a method for numerically homogenizing the hyperelastic anisotropic of thick-beamed lattice structures under large tension, compression, and shear deformations. The homogenization helps reduce the simulation time by 2-3 orders of magnitude while preserving accurate predictions of force and full-field deformations. The results have been exper

New orthosis for ankle-foot offloading

Check out the new video in our research page to see the new AFO design that allows natural walking with complete or partial offloading of the ankle and foot.

New publication on Nonlinear Parameter Estimation

Check out Amit Ashkenazi's new paper on quantifying parameter certainty bounds in highly nonlinear models. In this work, we propose a method for predicting the certainty bounds using two methods and provide a few useful examples. Check out the article for details on the reliability of the methods, discover the strength of the Hessian-based certainty bounds, and why we need to report certainty bounds of our estimated parameters!