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Bionic Hands to Become a Reality Soon?
Spy der Mann writes "A highly dexterous, bio-inspired artificial hand and sensory system that could provide patients with active feeling, is being developed by a European project called cyberhand. The final prototype includes sensors for tension, force, joint angle, end stroke and contact."
What is the size of the market for people who need a new hand? I'm intrigued for seeing deeper into the business plan here.
Are there profitable products that can be extended from this one? Maybe cybernetics for the non-handicapped in controlling machinery or possibly military purposes?
I'm not saying that there shouldn't be research for the handicapped, I'm just trying to see how a corporation justifiesthe expenses.
Or is this a government-funded (theft) product? If so, I'll say it is a waste.
Wonder how long till someone develops bionic eyes? I've been itching to ditch these failing organic meatballs called eyes for something better. High-def bionic eyes with zoom and night-vision would be pretty cool, not to mention the possibility of using them as a way to overlay information on top of stuff you see. Getting spyware could be quite annoying though, and if law enforcement had a way of remotely disabling them would suck, but maybe one could avoid that by running OS software on them. :)
what happens when a bionic arm that allows you to feel has an error.
What happens if you have a phantom limb where a bionic arm gets put in place? Will you feel pain in the artificial arm?
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I probably grumble about wanting a third arm/hand at least twice a week. Of course, I would assume that at least right now, this just ties into the existing nervous system in your arm, which would make it less than useful for adding an additional appendage. That said, it's only a matter of time.
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In the 6 Million Dollar Man, the bionic implants used a small nuclear power supply - in one episode it had to be replaced. How do you supply power for any kind of extended operation for a bionic hand? It seems that like many mobile/implantable technologies, the ability to provide an extended power source is lagging. The batteries for a 24 hour operating capability probably weigh several times more than all of the electronics, sensors, and electro-elastic polymer "motors".
"As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Presumably there's some limitation in design the human-machine interface- the actual parts that stimulate the nerve endings to make them think they're feeling something- which would preclude them from generating any exceedingly intense pain.
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As I know someone with partially servo controlled limb, I occasionally get to read some of the literature that is targeted towards people who need such devices. Something that seems to be a constant concern is heat dissapation.
The loss of a hand is a tremendous blow to the bodies ability to cool itself, and the addition of anything that creates additional heat is usually considered to be non-starter.
As I am unable to read the article from here I can not see if that is addressed within, but I am curious as to if there were any comments regarding it.
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First, about the phantom limb. A phantom limb is the sensation post amputation that the limb is really there. This is due to the fact that there are nerves which have been completely obliterated at their end points and have atrophied. Because these neurons tell the brain where the limb is, there is a position of the limb which is associated with the neurons not firing at all. The brain can become confused as it tries to sort out that the missing postural sensors are telling them something completely different than the other senses. The long and short of it is, with the prosthetic limb in place, its just another cue that the actual limb isn't there. Maybe the brain figures it out, and maybe it doesn't. Just a quick reply to the original post. The bionic arm isn't really bionic. Its completely outside the body. Electromusculogram (EMG) electrodes on the skin are used to interpret what the user wants to do. They're not really using the same pathways to generate the response as a normal person would. Those pathways are (for the most part), completely gone anyway. As I understand it, the prosthetic hand their working on actually attempts to latch on to some of those atrophying pathways, and use them to move the device. Ironically, this should actually keep them from atrophying any more.