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Rocket-Powered Bionic Arm Successfully Tested

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the inflation-hits-the-6-million-dollar-man dept.

amigoro writes "A rocket-powered bionic arm has been successfully developed and tested by a team of mechanical engineers at Vanderbilt University as part of a $30 million military program to develop advanced prosthetic devices for next generation of super-soldiers."

37 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. I for one... by Q-Hack! · · Score: 2, Funny

    Welcome our new robotic overlords...

    I know, but somebody has to say it.

    --
    Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
  2. Rocket-Propelled Bionic Arm by Eponymous+Bastard · · Score: 5, Funny

    I first read that as Rocket-Propelled Bionic Arm and thought, what's this? Mazinger Z?

    Then I read it again and, it's not much better. Off to RTFA...

    1. Re:Rocket-Propelled Bionic Arm by Masami+Eiri · · Score: 3, Funny

      Same thing I thought... "ROCKET PUNCH!" What's next, missile-launching bionic breasts?

  3. I don't know what the rocket adds... by akpoff · · Score: 5, Funny

    but I'm sure I want one.

    1. Re:I don't know what the rocket adds... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Funny
      but I'm sure I want one.

      Surely you didn't read that in a "power enhancement" spam, did you?

      ROCKET PROPEL YOUR MANHOOD WITH BIONIC IMPLANT - As seen on TV!


    2. Re:I don't know what the rocket adds... by Xiph · · Score: 5, Informative

      then take a look at it at the original story It's actually a solid state hydrogen peroxide H2O2, it is the steam that drives powers the mechanics.
      I guess it could be considered rocketry in that it's solid to gas transition. Also, it's what the astronauts use in spacewalk jetpacks

      --
      Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
    3. Re:I don't know what the rocket adds... by AoT · · Score: 2, Funny

      Clearly it is the first development towards our steampunk future.

      I for one...

      Um, let's just say I like the steampunk.

      --
      A blog about stuff.
    4. Re:I don't know what the rocket adds... by fractoid · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, from the sounds of it this has as much in common with rockets as it has with said spam. A rocket isn't "something that has expanding gas" or "something that uses hydrogen peroxide". A rocket is a device for producing thrust by ejecting propulsion mass. "Piston powered" would be more like it.

      Obligatory wiki link excluded since I'm sure you're all smart enough to find it. :P

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    5. Re:I don't know what the rocket adds... by sjames · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It is piston driven, but there is a connection bto rocket power. The catalyst and high-test peroxide fuel mechanism were first developed for rocket propulsion (and are still used in astronaut backpacks for maneuvering).

      So it isn't literally rocket powered but it is rocket technology powered.

  4. I was part of the beta testing group for this arm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I used it to give myself a dutch rudder, and it was pretty good

  5. Super Soldiers by batquux · · Score: 5, Funny
    FTA:

    a miniature rocket motor can lift (curl) about 20 to 25 pounds Wow, they'd almost be able to carry a weapon.
  6. How steampunk by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Goldfarb's power source is about the size of a pencil and contains a special catalyst that causes hydrogen peroxide to burn produce pure steam which is used to open and close a series of valves.

    The valves are connected to the spring-loaded joints by belts made of a special monofilament used in appliance handles and aircraft parts and a small sealed canister of hydrogen peroxide that easily fits in the upper arm can provide enough energy to power the device for 18 hours of normal activity. Does it make a choo-chooo sound when you're punching anyone?
    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  7. Try "rocket *fuel* powered"... by vanyel · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's no rockets involved, it's actually steam powered, fueled by rocket fuel (hydrogen peroxide).

    1. Re:Try "rocket *fuel* powered"... by skoaldipper · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hydrogen peroxide? Hmm. Novel concept. When you accidentally scrape the fur off your cat while petting it, you can simply open up an arm valve nozzle and spray the flesh wound sterile.

      --
      I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
    2. Re:Try "rocket *fuel* powered"... by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative

      Picture:
      http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/resources/bi onicarm_CAD-arm_800.jpg
      Caption:
      A solid model of the arm shows how it works. The propellant cartridge contains the pressurized monopropellant. The liquid is routed through two flexible lines (not shown) across the elbow join and into two catalyst packs: one for the elbow and one for the foream. The catalyst increases the effective volume of the propellant by 1000 times. The propellant does not flow continuously but is controlled and routed by the servo valves just downstream. By rotating to different positions, a servo valve routes the gas to one side or the other of a gas cylinder, pusing the piston up or down. The entire operation is computer controlled, based on force and motion feedback from the joints.

      Hydrogen peroxide + catalyst = hot gas (steam)
      Sounds to me like they're talking about a liquid fuel rocket motor.

      That pic + text was alongside the main article:
      http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/processor.ph p?action=get_section_text&id=1311&r=664693

      About halfway down they get into the details of how it works & why they call it a rocket motor. Towards the bottom you can read about the engineering challenges they faced.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    3. Re:Try "rocket *fuel* powered"... by Tmack · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hydrogen peroxide? Hmm. Novel concept. When you accidentally scrape the fur off your cat while petting it, you can simply open up an arm valve nozzle and spray the flesh wound sterile.

      The high concentrate used as rocket fuel (up to 90% or better, read the early stages of http://armadilloaerospace.com/ when they were playing with this stuff) would ignite the cat on fire almost immediately on contact. Stuff that comes in the brown bottle is 1% or less usually (whitening toothpaste can be around 5%).

      Tm

      --
      Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
    4. Re:Try "rocket *fuel* powered"... by TitusC3v5 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Dude...that's awesome.

      --
      And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
  8. This is the kind of action I expect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bionic Commando

    Aw yeah. That's some rocket-and-bionic power right there! Did you see what he did to Hitler?

  9. Re:Efficiency, not so much by Eponymous+Bastard · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, but a steam engine works by steam created by boiling normal water with an external power source and using the pressure. This works by burning H2O2 which ends up producing steam and then this high-pressure steam is used. It's not external combustion. It's closer to an internal combustion engine, actually.

    I wouldn't call this a rocket, but it does seem to mix rocket engines (for high pressure gas generation) with steam engines (for harnessing high pressure gas). The closest thing I can think of is a car's air bag, quickly creating high pressure gas but not using that for propulsion. Or maybe a car's engine pushing against the pistons.

    I guess the nomenclature is the hardest part about this article.

  10. Not the best idea by fishthegeek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Giving a rocket powered bionic arm to a 19 year old soldier thousands of miles away from his girlfriend? This can only end in tragedy.

    --
    load "$",8,1
  11. Amazing Video by fractalVisionz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Check out the video on vandy's website. I love the last few seconds where the robotic are is about to cap someone!

  12. Re:Efficiency, not so much by georgewilliamherbert · · Score: 4, Informative

    The term you are looking for is "Gas Generator".

    Rocket is something that generates gas (usually by combustion or decomposition) and expels it through a nozzle for thrust.

    Gas generator is generic for a device which produces gas. A boiler is a special case (heat + water). There are gas generators in airbags (solid azide chemical reaction), other industrial uses too.

    This just uses decomposing hydrogen peroxide to generate steam. Just another gas generator.

  13. Disabled vets, anyone? by graft · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Didn't it occur to anyone that the reason DARPA might be interested in this is the hundreds of vets with missing limbs who have a need for better prosthetics? The military applications of this technology seems marginal at best. I'm sure DARPA is funding all sorts of military robotics research (in fact, I know they are), but this sure as hell isn't it.

    1. Re:Disabled vets, anyone? by Garridan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. The Pentagon doesn't give a shit about the vets. Don't you read the news?

    2. Re:Disabled vets, anyone? by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While I think it would be great for them to give soldiers some of their limbs back, if even in limited form, It seems that these appendages won't quite give them back what they once had for many years to come. How long until they can curl 50 lbs. How long until they have enough control to play video games, or type, or even just operate a remote control. Seems to me the 30 million would be better spent researching ways to stops getting into so many wars.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    3. Re:Disabled vets, anyone? by phantomlord · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seems to me the 30 million would be better spent researching ways to stops getting into so many wars. You do realize that emergency medicine (ie, that trauma center at your local hospital), plastic/reconstructive surgery, prosthetics, etc all have their roots in military need, don't you? If your kid is born with a facial deformity, be glad that somewhere along the line, soldiers had their face rebuilt after taking severe wounds. If you get stabbed in the park, be glad that the military devised a method of mobilizing, classifying, and treating wounds. If you get in an accident and completely shatter your foot beyond repair, be glad the military invested the R&D in amputation techniques and how to build a better lower leg.

      Replacements will eventually get better. In fact, there was a story on slashdot a couple weeks ago about a new hand, As to the person saying the military will only get such things for high ranking soldiers, the story I saw on tv was about one Sgt. Juan Arredondo. Not only not major brass, he's hispanic as well.

      Everyone has a pet project on how they'd want to spend X million dollars... and we'll never agree 100% on any expenditure. However, I feel it is our duty to return as much life back to those who volunteered to protect our lives and freedom. Also, lets be realistic, as long as people are human, they will disagree and disagreements will eventually spill over into war of some kind (be it one military against another, one gang against another or two siblings fighting that goes too far).
      --
      Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
    4. Re:Disabled vets, anyone? by phantomlord · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Doctors, when faced with medical problems, strive to find solutions. Our initial knowledge of anatomy came from doctors disecting deceased people, to see how they tick. Some ... a VERY small percentage ... of this knowledge came from the battlefield. An overwhelming majority did NOT come from the battlefield, but from universities.

      It's hard to find solutions when you don't have a fresh stream of people in the right place at the right time to try them out on. Certainly, you wouldn't argue that a 10 year old with a facial scar from a car accident when she was 3 is the person to do initial experiments with plastic surgery on. Guys who are missing half of their face from a shrapnel wound? Good choice.

      Prior to the Civil War, armies didn't really try to set up field hospitals where they could perform on-site diagnosis, triage and surgery facing a wide array of potentially fatal, somewhat random wounds. They treated everything from burns to gangrene to shattered bones in those hospitals. Morbidity post-amputation was pretty high and that's where sterilization procedures started coming into play. Where do you think the system of roving medics who triage wounds and stabilize patients en-route to doctors (like EMTs/ambulances/helicopters rushing you to the hospital) comes from?

      a mini PBS documentary of some of the history of medicine and the military. I've seen lots of stuff on the History Channel as well. There are a LOT of books and other information out there describing the advances made in medicine because of warfare. If you think we'd be where we are without those sacrifices, you'd be very mistaken. Pick up a book, pretty much any book on the subject, and educate yourself before you go off spouting that scientists/doctors will make advances at the rate they have without patients to work on.

      Not at all. Capitalism, and in particular Imperialism is driving all the wars on the planet, in one form or another. Even the stupid tribal wars in Africa can be traced back to a bunch of capitalists who want to profit from selling arms and generally sticking their nose ( and capital ) where's it's not wanted. The Middle East is of course the most obvious example of imperialist meddling leading to wars. Individuals - even large groups of them - have no interest in war. People want to solve their problems in constructive ways, that benefit everyone. It's the capitalists who use massive armies and WOMD to enforce their will.

      Check your history... Everyone has an ancestor who has been involved in war. It doesn't matter if they were from Athens, Egypt, Russia, Peru or Japan. Everyone fights at some time and you're ignorant if you think it's always pure capitalism at heart. My farm dries up while my neighbor has more water than he can use but refuses to share. It is capitalism for me to go steal his water to keep my family from dying? Only if that is the prism that you look at the entire world through. Wars were fought over the eye of a woman (see Helen of Troy... yes, mythology but mythology is often based in historical fact to convey a lesson). Siblings fight over the attention of their parents. Some people will kill each other still just because of the color of their skin.

      Very few people actually like and support full scale war... but, it is the one thing guaranteed to provide a solution to a problem. Diplomacy can never work without a military to enforce it and if someone refuses diplomacy and keeps attacking you, you have no choice but to force them into surrender.

      Now... since you seem to be in the camp that the US shouldn't stick its nose into other people's business, do you also agree we have no business going into Darfur, had no business in Kosovo, Somalia, etc? Or do you mean we have no business meddling in other people's affairs unless it is something you, in particular, approve of? I know quite a few people who have an inte

      --
      Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
    5. Re:Disabled vets, anyone? by cortex · · Score: 3, Informative

      I am a member of the Univ. of Utah team working on the neural control part of the DARPA revolutionizing prosthetics projects. I can tell you definitively that this project is solely aimed at helping injured veterans. They have made a point of having the scientists and engineers working on this project meet people who have lost limbs while serving their country. It was very moving and motivational to meet these soldiers in person. I am pretty sure that the technology will also be made available to civilian amputees. The people I have met from the Pentagon do care a great deal about the lives and welfare of the people serving in the military, as well as all people in general.

  14. Or did you mean to welcome... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "... our new robot underarms?"

  15. In a possibly related story... by suitepotato · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...Vanderbilt University reported a work-related injury to the OSHA wherein an employee who is as yet unidentified was seriously injured in his groin. Confidential sources say there was a lot of blood and a violently ripped off body part involved. We await further news on this development.

    --
    If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
  16. Re:Super? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wars not make one great!

    But rocket-powered bionic arms do!

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  17. Bad Move by DynaSoar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Army prefers not to put powered vehicles on the front line because
    (1) they require refueling, and fuel is a supply/logistics problem, and
    (2) they make noise, and
    (3) being mechanical, they break.

    Loading up each soldier with enough H2O2 to get through the day would require stocking and maintaining equipment for this stuff. Running out of H2O2 before you can get refueled will result in removing the equipment so it won't detract from action, and that will result in soldiers abandoning it rather than run around burdened by something they can't use.

    Sitting around making a hissing noise makes one a target even in the dark.

    Putting a non-combatant like a mechanic/armorer on the front line is a bad idea because they can get killed, leaving you with useless armor. If this happens, or if it breaks and you don't send a mechanic/armorer because they're a burden themselves, it will result in the same abandoning noted above. Electrical devices break down less than mechanical and make them more likely to be adopted and used.

    If H2O2/catalyst devices are capable of producing sufficient power, they'd be being developed for use in fuel cells (which still requires the rear line placement), which could recharge battery powered armor (which doesn't have near the other problems). To be efficient it would require high purity stuff, which is hard to produce, and requires difficult and expensive maintenance no matter how far back it's made and stored. Even so, it'd be better from a logistic and tactical stand point to develop hydrogen based fuel cells to charge battery powered armor, running off the hydrogen from the fuels they're already going to be carting around -- unleaded, diesel and JP4/8.

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
  18. Nope, you're the first. by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Informative

    Didn't it occur to anyone that the reason DARPA might be interested in this is the hundreds of vets with missing limbs who have a need for better prosthetics? CARL: I got Games & Theory.

    CARMEN: Games & Theory? That's Military Intelligence... Oh, Carl!

    JOHNNY: Whoa Way to go, boy-yo!

    RECRUITING SERGEANT: Next time we meet, I'll probably have to salute you. What about you, son?

    JOHNNY: Infantry, sir.

    RECRUITING SERGEANT: Well, good for you. The Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today.
    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  19. HEY! LOOK AT BENDER! I'M BEING ENTERTAINiNG! by Spokehedz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bite my shiny, rocket-powered, metal ass!

    Ha-hahahaha!

  20. Video link by ZDRuX · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's the link to the video which shows the arm in action and talks a little about how it is made.

    --
    The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  21. Steam powered, not rocket powered. by camperdave · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is a steam powered artificial limb. It has nothing to do with rocket power (thrust produced by ejecting reaction mass) other than the fuel.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  22. Sir, Yessir! *Thud* by kabdib · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Figby, why aren't the troops saluting me?"

    "Sir, they don't want to wind up in the infirmary, like when General Havermeyer reviewed them."

    "What?"

    "Ah, but it was beautiful, Sir. The whole camp, passing in review, snapping their new powered arms up in perfect salutes . . . too much sun on the hardware . . . a firmware bug not caught in testing . . . ."

    "You mean?"

    "Fifteen hundred simultaneous concussions, Sir."

    "What?!"

    "They dropped in well-ordered lines, north-to-south, toes straight up. A credit to the training officers, if you ask me, Sir."

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.