Under the roof of the latest $62.7-million mid-campus building, Cal State Northridge faculty and students have new workspaces and classrooms dedicated to Artificial Intelligence driven by science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The Autodesk Technology Engagement Center, opening Aug. 22, is named after Autodesk, a global Design and Make technology company headquartered in San Francisco that provides software and technology to architects, engineers, designers, manufacturers, filmmakers and more.
Autodesk invested more than $10 million into its partnership with Cal State Northridge, including $5 million to help bring the 32,000-square-foot facility to fruition that began two-and-one-half years ago.
The new facility is the first of its kind in Artificial Intelligence for social good, making it one of the only campuses in the nation to combine hands-on disciplines and AI skills training in design, financial empowerment and creative technology, according to Autodesk officials.
For many, this tech hub will be their first-ever access point to cutting-edge tools, mentorship and training in emerging technologies like AI.
Cal State Northridge Professor Peter Bishay, a supervisor and founder of Smart Prosthetics, which is a senior-research design project introduced in 2017, will continue under his tutelage in the new facility by continuing their exploration, design and production of a robotic arm prosthetic.
“I decided it might be a good idea to create a program where students can work on developing and designing a prosthetic arm,” Bishay said. “It was chosen because it doesn’t take up a big space and because many students are interested in robotics. Prosthesis, especially arm prosthesis, is a field that requires a lot of development.”
What is Missing in the Current Prosthetics Market?
For mechanical engineers, Bishay’s project is full of mechanical engineering challenges because they are attempting to design an arm prosthetic the same size as a natural human arm along with a hand that controls and moves all five fingers and the wrist and bends at the elbow.
“Our goal is to move all of the fingers so individuals can grip different objects of different weights, shapes and sizes,” he said.
Six or seven years ago, motors turned to move all the fingers at once. Today’s field has developed small motors, each one with the capability to move a finger individually or grip an object as thin as a pencil or as wide as a soda can for example.
“An interesting aspect of the project is to control the (arm) prosthesis …from a foot control, a promising touch control and method at a cost thousands of dollars less than today’s design and most likely covered by insurance companies that have denied coverage in the past arguing a prosthesis is medically unnecessary,” Bishay said.
He compared the current market prosthesis cost at approximately $40,000 compared to the CSUN-designed invention estimated at $300 and aimed at primarily using 3-D printers and computer software to create.
“Even if you don’t have a 3-D printer there are some libraries that have maker space areas where you can send in files and request to have things printed for you entirely through libraries and public space,” said Ian Sherrill, a CSUN student pursuing a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering on Bishay’s team.
Currently, a myro electric sensor is usually placed in any muscle location in the residual limb. When the amputee moves a muscle that sensor detects the movement and moves the finger accordingly.
However, there are challenges with the myro electric sensor that can be affected by sweat, arm muscle that were removed or missing, or a dislocated sensor behaving in unexpected ways.
“(Consequently), we need a control system that is independent from any muscle in the arm (leading) to the idea of the foot control,” Bishay said. “We developed a simple system … that can be placed in your shoe. It has two tiny push buttons, one under the big toe and one under the four lesser toes together.”
Humans have the ability to move our big toe and four lesser toes individually.
With a simple click of the Cal State Northridge design an amputee can start closing the fingers gradually to gain control.
“There’s a connection between the foot and our arms in our minds,” Bishay said. “In this design, we also have wrist motion … using the ankle and the wrist mimics the motion of the foot. The idea of the foot control, no one has tried to do this in the way we have done.”
In a CSU Northridge-produced video, which garnered a front-page March 2025 cover article in the industry journal Technology, along with other published papers on the foot control for example, could be a ticket toward future employment for the students pursuing Master’s and doctorial degrees in mechanical engineering.
There’s a patent pending on the university’s idea of the foot control that was submitted more than a year ago.
Another challenge to overcome in designing a prosthesis the CSUN team is working toward is having the amputee gain back the loss of touch.
In order to give them back that sense, the team worked on an “haptic feedback system” by putting four sensors in the fingertips.
“And once they feel the pressure from any object it can give you … a (vibration) notification similar to an Apple watch,” Bishay said. “What we are working on now is even more advanced. It’s not only touch notifications … but we are trying to use AI to detect an object.”
The idea is to use a tiny camera attached to the hand that takes a live picture of an object such as wood, fabric or plastic through the AI trained systems that determine different materials and is noninvasive to the amputee.
“There will be some applicators that will give (the amputee) the same texture as the materials,” Bishay said. “So when you grip something wooden you will actually feel the texture of the wood … and gently rub your skin with the texture of the represented material.”
The Artificial Intelligence Connection
Last year, the university’s team was introduced to an AI training model or machine-learning system with a new idea regarding foot control commands such as stomping one’s foot that translates the motion into a hand gesture.
“We can put in those initial gestures and tell the device how to respond when a user uses it, but having the machine learning in AI, watching that behavior and learning what the user does, what their habits are, it can kind of improve the detection,” said Camron Carter, one the Bishay’s graduate student-team member.
Gerbert Funes, also a Master’s student in mechanical engineering studying with Bishay, has been working on the prosthesis project for the past three years. When he started there was an initial prototype, including the controller still using old-school technology.
“We brought that up to what I believe could compete with what is out there right now,” Funes said. “(Our) controller is very nice. We are apparently doing a project alongside this to test that controller itself and it’s been showing really good results so far.”
CSUN mechanical engineering students have watched this project scenario grow from an infant to practically a grown adult stage.
Past engineering students spent endless hours designing every part from scratch.
“I am very proud of the work I have put into this project and where it has ended up,’ said Sherrill. “I was going to school just to go to school. And then I started volunteering … which led to me … a position of leadership. Half way through … I realized how much fun it was going to school. (Looking back) … I got an internship at a company (and) this was preparing in so many amazing ways.”
These particular students who made up some of Bishay’s team in past consecutive years created bonds.
“We had that kind of community building from the past into the future and got to hand the torch off to the next team and not only being an awesome engineer project we loved to work on but that it’s a prosthesis for people who need them,” Carter said. “It’s always great to come back to that and know we are contributing to something and not just creating a cool tool but something that can help people in the future.”
These university students placed first in various challenging competitions numerous times in the Cal State’s 23-school system in research and presentation.
Carter added opportunities to publish research papers for an undergrad is unique.
“It’s a big head start for us,” he said.