Peter Kyberd is a professor at the University of New Brunswick

University of New Brunswick

The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...

's Institute of Biomedical Engineering, and a leading authority on control of prosthetic limbs, a subject he has been working on since the late 1980s, including a highly publicised collaboration with Kevin Warwick

Kevin Warwick

Kevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...

 and Mark Gasson

Mark Gasson

Mark Gasson is a British scientist and senior research fellow at the Cybernetic Intelligence Research Group, University of Reading, UK. He pioneered developments in direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, is active in the research fields of robotics and identity and...

 at the University of Reading

University of Reading

The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...

, using implanted electrodes to control a robotic arm. In addition to his peer-reviewed scientific publications his work has been featured in popular science journals such as Electronics Times.

Dr. Kyberd has a first class degree from Durham University

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

, his PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 was awarded in 1990 for work on a prosthetic hand at Southampton University, and his subsequent career saw this followed through the Oxford Orthopaedic Engineering Centre, his work at Reading and currently in Canada.

One early innovation was the use of sensitive microphone

Microphone

A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...

s to detect when an object gripped by a prosthetic hand was slipping. Using this, he was able to design a hand which could pick up a raw egg without breaking it. He has also focused on duplicating the complex axes of movement of the hand, particularly the thumb.

External links

• Progress of a modular prosthetic arm, A Poulton, P J Kyberd, D Gow, Universal Access and Assistive Technology, Springer, ISBN 1852335955, 2002.