Peter Kyberd

Who is Peter Kyberd?

Peter Kyberd is a professor at the University of New Brunswick'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 and Mark Gasson at the University of Reading, 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, his PhD 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 microphones 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.