The GT-Bionics Lab’s Tongue Drive System was elected as one of the seventeen finalists in the 2010 da Vinci Awards. The Tongue Drive System was competing in the prosthetics/orthotics/controls category, and came out with the inaugural “Leo” People’s Choice Award at the award ceremony held in Dearborn, Michigan. Currently, the research team led by Dr. Maysam Ghovanloo, is preparing for the second phase of clinical trials at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Ghovanloo, an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, focuses his research on biomedical device development. The Tongue Drive System employs the latest magnetic sensing technology and low powered radio frequency transceivers as well as advanced signal processing algorithms and smartphones in an attempt to promote the use of the most advanced microelectronics technologies in rehabilitation engineering.

The da Vinci Awards is a world renowned international forum for the latest breakthroughs in adaptive and assistive technologies. Finalists representing the U.S., Canada, and Denmark were chosen from global competitors.