Greg Nichols
for Robotics
| November 8, 2021
| Topic: Robotics
Unlimited Tomorrow
Here’s the problem: Advanced prosthetics can improve the quality of life for amputees, but the devices are incredibly expensive. A company called Unlimited Tomorrow has created a process to solve for this, and in so doing, it’s become an important test case for technology-driven manufacturing.
The problem isn’t insignificant. Nearly 2,000,000 people live with limb loss in the United States, which records approximately 185,000 amputations each year, alone, per the Amputee Coalition.
Historically, amputees have been hard-pressed to find lightweight and comfortable prosthetics, intuitive and reliable, and, perhaps most importantly, affordable. These challenges are compounded for children with limb loss, as they’re required to purchase multiple prosthetics as they grow. It costs an average of $80,000 per limb to keep a child outfitted with an appropriate prosthetic.
To make prosthetics that are tailored to individual amputees’ needs, and particularly children, at a fraction of the cost, Unlimited Tomorrow Founder Easton LaChapelle has turned to emerging technologies, such as Siemens’ 3D printing software. It’s a game-changer.
Hardware
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CXO
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Innovation
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Artificial Intelligence