Some of Herr’s key innovations include:
- the first autonomous leg exoskeleton to lower human metabolism, increase preferred speed, and reduce musculoskeletal stress for human walking.
- a novel surgical procedure for limb amputation and neural interfacing that allows persons with limb loss to control their synthetic limbs through thought and experience natural proprioceptive sensations from the synthetic limb.
- a powered ankle-foot prosthesis that has been clinically shown to allow amputees to walk with normal levels of speed and metabolism.
Herr’s team is now evaluating its novel bionic limbs for clinical efficacy in people with amputations at various levels. The limbs’ artificial sensors enable brain-controlled movements with natural touch and movement sensations.
The team is also advancing a technology to help stroke survivors and people with age-related musculoskeletal joint disease gain muscle strength. The system uses proprioceptive sensing and biophysical controllers to modulate artificial muscle interfaces that are attached to the body. The researchers expect that it will enable people with certain leg weaknesses to vary their walking cadence and move across irregular terrains with typical energy exertion and a natural gait
To restore movement function in people with paralyzed limbs caused by spinal cord injury, the team has embarked on a cross-disciplinary collaboration with McGovern’s Ed Boyden and Robert Langer to develop a platform that will incorporate, among other elements, a scaffold—or engineered “nerve bridge”—to reproduce the conductivity and mechanical properties of the original tissue and muscle-control interfaces to provide computer-modulated muscle stimulation using optogenetics, which enables neuronal activity to be controlled with light.
Herr’s lab has also launched the Sierra Leone Prosthetic Project to design and implement a health-system model to support the country’s prosthetic sector and expand access to prosthetic devices.
Herr earned his MS in mechanical engineering at MIT and his PhD in biophysics at Harvard University. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the MIT Leg Lab, part of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, which is dedicated to studying legged locomotion and building dynamic legged robots that walk, run, and hop like their biological counterparts. In 2000, Herr took over as director of the lab, which eventually became the Biomechatronics Group within the Media Lab. He was named co-director of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics in 2022 and joined the McGovern Institute as an associate investigator that same year.
Liberty Science Center Genius Award, 2022
Princess of Asturias Award for Technical & Scientific Research, 2016
Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Technology, 2014
R&D Magazine Innovator of the Year Award, 2014
Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation Inventor of the Year Award, 2014
Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment, 2007
EmPower ankle-foot prosthesis named to the list of Top Ten Inventions in the health category by TIME in 2007
Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership Award, 2005
Rheo prosthetic knee named to the list of Top Ten Inventions in the health category by TIME in 2004
