BFH at the Cybathlon

BFH is planning to enter three teams in the Cybathlon 2024. In this unique international contest, people with physical disabilities compete against each other in tackling various everyday tasks, supported by state-of-the-art assistive technology systems.

What is the Cybathlon?

The Cybathlon is a non-profit project by ETH Zurich that challenges teams of developers from universities, companies, and NGOs from all over the world to develop assistive technologies suitable for everyday use, with and for people with disabilities.

There are eight disciplines in all. The races are designed to reflect activities encountered in everyday life. This is done to show how well the various technologies are suited to assisting the user in everyday life.

Arm Prosthesis Race
Assistance Robot Race
Vision Assistance Race
Brain-Computer Interface Race
Exoskeleton Race
Functional Electrical Stimulation Bike Race
Leg Prosthesis Race
Wheelchair Race

The BFH teams

After BFH entered one team in 2016 and two teams in 2020, three teams will be competing in 2024.

Team BFH-CybaTrike

Name	Team BFH-CybaTrike
Discipline	FES – Functional Electrical Stimulation Bike Race
Head of team	Kenneth Hunt
Team member	Efe Anil Aksöz
Pilot*in	tbd
Previous rankings	3rd place (2016), 4th place (2020)

The BFH-CybaTrike team, led by Kenneth Hunt, is taking part in the Cybathlon for the third time in 2024, in the discipline ‘FES – Functional Electrical Stimulation Bike Race’. The CybaTrike is a recumbent trike that people with complete paralysis of the lower limbs can propel by their own muscle power. This involves attaching electrodes to the skin, which conduct electrical impulses to the paralysed leg muscles and thus activate them. The timing of the activation is controlled by sensors on the pedal crank arm. With feedback from these sensors and the pre-set activation positions, the system knows the precise position of the rider’s legs and the corresponding muscles can be stimulated in a targeted manner. The level of stimulation and thus the degree of activation is controlled by the trike pilot via a throttle on the handlebar.

Participating institute

Institute for Human Centered Engineering – Laboratory for Rehabilitation Engineering

Team BFH-Hand-X

Name	Team BFH-Hand-X
Discipline	ARM – Arm Prosthesis Race
Head of team	Gerhard Kuert
Team member(s)	tbd
Pilot	tbd
Previous ranking	5th place (2020)

At the Institute for Human Centered Engineering HuCE, the development of a feedback system for a ‘feeling’ prosthesis, which partially restores the sense of touch, has been underway since 2014. This system is able to distinguish rough surface textures, the hardness or even the density of a (soft) object, and more besides. The team around Gerhard Kuert took part in the Cybathlon for the first time in 2020.

Participating institute

Institute for Human Centered Engineering HuCE

Team BFH-FAIR

Name	Team BFH-FAIR
Discipline	ROB – Assistance Robot Race
Head of team	Gabriel Gruener
Project staff	Students Corinne Bischofberger, Vera Fosbrooke, Nicole Hutmacher, Simone Napp, Julian Rösch, Vanessa Steiner, Aline Vandebroek, Mascha Willimann Lecturers and scientific assistants Alexandra Bellwald, Patric Eichelberger, Luc Girod, Dounia Hassar, Nicole Lutz, Gionata Quadri, Anja Raab, Raphael Rätz, Sebastian Tobler
Pilots	Gabriela Pozzi and Fritz Eichholzer

The interdisciplinary team BFH-FAIR with researchers and students from the School of Engineering & Computer Science and the School of Health Professions will compete in the Cybathlon for the first time in 2024, in the Assistance Robot Race, a newly created discipline. In this discipline, tetraplegics solve different tasks with the help of a robotic assistive device. The team has two pilots: Fritz Eichholzer, a former engineer from Thalwil, and Gaby Pozzi from Ennetbaden. Both suffered a bicycle accident that left them tetraplegic. For Fritz, the accident happened shortly before retirement. Gaby was younger and, thanks to multiple operations, she can perform simple manual activities that require little strength, such as operating a switch or shaking hands. Both pilots have found different ways to get through the daily activities. An assistive robot has great potential to increase their autonomy. At the Cybathlon, both will use the robot to solve tasks, avoid obstacles as well as recognise and manipulate various objects.