Hardware Accelerator Team Spotlight: InvictusBCI

#HardwareAcclerator19 team, InvictusBCI, is making headway in the prosthetic market. Team members Vini and Eeshan Tripathii are focused on creating an affordable, easy to use upper limb prosthetic device that will give users a wide range of motion. 

What problems do you solve for the market? 

Prosthetics today are expensive, difficult to learn how to use, and have a limited range of motion. InivictusBCI seeks to create affordable neuroprosthetics that are intuitive and capable of individual finger movement.

Who is your customer? 

Upper limb amputees and prosthetic users that are seeking solutions that can help restore greater functionality. 

What is your innovation’s solution? 

Our solution uses noninvasive biometric sensors to monitor changes in brain signals that are decoded by a machine learning algorithm that decodes the signals into discrete movements, which is performed by the prosthetic in real time.

How did you come up with this idea? 

Last year someone close to me became very sick. It got so bad that doctors had to amputate her hand so that she could live. Suddenly, this person, who had always been very independent and active could no longer draw, drive, or type – even simple mundane tasks like dressing themselves became difficult. It was through her that I realized the limitations of prosthetics today. Even though we can send rovers to Mars, we still don’t have prosthetics that allow for individual finger movement.

What has been the biggest surprise? What has been the most eye-opening experience thus far? 

I have been surprised at the gap between what is possible and what is available as a solution. I have discovered that prosthetics have a high rate of failure — a lot of amputees give up on the use of the prosthetic because it is non-intuitive to use.