Hugh Herr Wants to Build a More Perfect Human
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strategy+business ISSUE 85 WINTER 2016 Hugh Herr Wants to Build a More Perfect Human At MIT’s Media Lab, an engineer and biophysicist — and double amputee — is designing prosthetics that connect body and brain. BY SALLY HELGESEN REPRINT 16410 feature innovation 1 AT MIT’S MEDIA LAB, AN ENGINEER AND BIOPHYSICIST — AND HUGHDOUBLE AMPUTEE — IS DESIGNING PROSTHETICS THAT CONNECT BODY AND HERR BRAIN BY SALLY HELGESEN feature WANTS innovation TO BUILD A MORE 2 PERFECT HUMAN Sally Helgesen [email protected] is an author, speaker, and leadership development consultant whose most recent book is The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work (with Julie Johnson; Berrett- Koehler, 2010). Hugh Herr sits at a table in his austere glass office we have to ask ourselves now is: What would be more in the famous Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute useful here, skin or polymer? Fit, function, comfort, and feature of Technology, scrolling through images of a striking aesthetics will dictate our decisions.” fashion model born without a right forearm. As head of A computer scientist, mechanical engineer, and biomechatronics research at MIT and one of the world’s biophysicist, Herr is himself a double amputee. And innovation leading developers of wearable robotics, Herr is making his immersion in robotics was initially driven by a per- a point about how disability is becoming obsolete as the sonal quest to develop superior prosthetics. By analyz- boundary between humans and robots vanishes. ing human motion, studying how electronic devices The model, Rebekah Marine, strikes a pose on the interface with the nervous system, and using live mus- runway. She wears a black-and-gold braided asymmetri- cles to activate these devices, Herr and his biomecha- cal dress, a forearm of woven mesh that fits like a long tronics team have created augmentations that respond evening glove, and a large metal and polymer hand; to ever more subtle neural commands, with vastly im- her outsized finger joints resemble those in a cartoon proved functionality and fit. Innovations include an drawing of a robot. Next up, there’s Marine in a bath- artificial knee that adapts to the individual’s gait and ing suit, tossing a mane of silvery hair that coordinates an ankle–foot exoskeleton for patients suffering from with a silvery sleeve and hand. Then Marine in a black drop foot, a pathology caused by stroke, cerebral palsy, bodysuit and thigh-high black boots paired with a glis- and multiple sclerosis. 3 tening all-black arm. In each photo, the model’s eye- Known outside scientific circles for his powerful catching costumes are upstaged by her i-limb quantum TED talks and appearances at high-visibility confabs prosthetic, which features advanced gesture control that such as SXSW in Austin, Herr, 52, compels attention. mimics human function. Tall and slender, with an athletic build and a quiet de- “What you see here is extreme bionics,” says Herr. meanor, he strides about the stage on robotic-looking legs “By that I mean designed constructs that attach to or of his own design. The system uses a bionic foot and calf integrate with neural networks in order to normalize system known commercially as the BiOM, which Herr capability.” Just as the functional use of advanced aug- developed and patented. It is the only prosthetic with mentations blurs the boundaries between human and powered push-off; that is, the calf function in normal machine, disability and function, so the materials and walking is replicated because an algorithm in the ankle devices Herr and his colleagues design erode the bar- calculates every step. This push-off gives the wearer the rier between the natural and the human-made. “We sensation of actually moving his or her leg. The BiOM can use living muscle tissue and grown cells, or fabrics is sold through BionX, the company Herr spun off from like aluminum and polymer. Or we can blend synthet- MIT to manufacture and sell his products. ics with biologics,” he says. Herr’s team at the Media Far from viewing the loss of his own legs below the Lab recently made a mechanical fish that swims using knee 34 years ago as a tragedy, Herr considers it a kind living muscle taken from frogs. “The kind of question of fortunate wound that imbued him with an overriding Photographs by Matthew Septimus BionX at a Glance • For-profit corporation spun • Product approved for off from MIT in 2007 as iWalk coverage in U.S. by Depart- ment of Veterans Affairs, • Manufacturing and product Department of Defense, development site at company workers’ compensation headquarters in Bedford, insurance; pending for Mass. Medicare coverage in 2017 • 49 employees • Working to develop a product • 1,300 customers for BiOM that will draw information prosthetics in U.S., Europe, directly from the nerves in the and Canada upper leg sense of purpose: It spurred him to create the founda- But the scope of Herr’s interests and ambitions tional science that he hopes will eliminate disability as takes him beyond the desire to simply redress lost func- feature features humanity has known it. In addition to focusing his at- tion. He’s become an evangelist for the notion that aug- tention on this goal, the damage sustained by his body mentation can also be used to expand capacity for those title of the article title has proven useful for testing iterations of what he de- with intact bodies and functioning minds: wearables innovation signs. “I am one of those individuals with unusual bod- that enable human eyes to see infrared waves; tools that ies and minds who are exploring interventions that will permit individuals to design and sculpt their own bod- give the gift of augmentation to all humanity,” he says. ies, either for aesthetic reasons or to enhance athletic or Herr’s sincerity, bolstered by decades of unceasing professional performance. effort, makes this lofty observation sound thoughtful For example, soldiers clunk into battle carrying rather than pompous. And there is precedent for this more than 100 pounds of special equipment, includ- type of activity: Louis Braille, who as a child was blind- ing night vision systems, auditory enhancements, and ed in an accident, developed the eponymous enabling cumbersome body armor. Directly embedding enhanced language in the early 19th century. Herr acknowledg- function into soldiers’ bodies and equipment would es that the enhancements he builds raise the kinds of make them quicker on their feet and less vulnerable to questions — particularly regarding the potential conse- attack. This is why the U.S. Department of Defense’s quences of scientists messing with the natural order — research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects 4 that have haunted humanity since Mary Shelley pub- Agency (DARPA), has been aggressively funding further lished Frankenstein in 1818. Herr comes down strongly research on wearable robotics that give soldiers an edge on the side of scientific innovation because he views dis- in battle as well as addressing the physical and mental de- ability as an insult to nature. In his view, it’s an evil, like bilities that plague so many of those who have served in poverty; humans are called upon to use their God-given combat. “This spending creates the competitive environ- intelligence to eradicate it. ment for extremely rapid advancement,” Herr says. “The In line with this sweeping vision, Herr anticipates money is pouring in. As a result, scientists are already do- that biomechatronics (integrating biology, mechanics, ing things that nonscientists still believe are impossible.” and electronics) and related disciplines will create inter- Cesar Hidalgo, an MIT and Media Lab colleague, ventions that counter not only physical but also men- describes Herr’s work as “translating what used to be tal and cognitive disabilities. Innovations will diminish science fiction into tangible products that transform pain without opioids and even address the routine ef- how people experience the world.” A physicist known fects of aging, such as the loss of balance. To him, the for his work in economic complexity and the author of incorporation of enhanced capability into the human Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from body is the next frontier in scientific discovery, one that Atoms to Economics (Basic Books, 2015), Hidalgo cites builds directly on our growing understanding of how wearable robotics as a prime example of what he calls artificial intelligence works. “crystallized imagination” — packets of information transformed by human knowledge and human know- The Turning Point how into objects that remake industries and shape The journey that set Herr into motion began 34 years economic growth. “Hugh’s work teaches me that con- ago on Mount Washington in the White Mountains straints we see as intrinsic are not static and do not de- of New Hampshire. The tallest peak in the Northeast, fine reality,” he says. “They can be changed if someone Mount Washington is known for extremely cold tem- with the imagination to see beyond them is given access peratures and is beset by hurricane-force winds for more to the right team and the right resources.” than 100 days a year. In January 1982, Herr, a fearless In fact, Herr does not accept constraints or regard 17-year-old climbing prodigy, was hiking with a 20-year- limitations as intrinsic: “When it comes to the human old friend when they became lost in a wasteland known capacity to adapt, I literally do not see boundaries.” Not as the Great Gulf during an extended whiteout. For two feature surprisingly, his work is influential among so-called nights and three days, they cradled each other in the body hackers — the loosely organized grassroots activ- snow, trying to keep their bodies’ temperature up.