Topic: Look ma, biotic hand!

[Tus-XC]

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,464187,00.html

Segway Inventor Builds Bionic Arm for Wounded GIs
Tuesday , December 09, 2008

The man behind the Segway scooter has a new invention: bionic arms for wounded soldiers.

Called the "Luke Arm" after the prosthetic hand sported by Luke Skywalker in the "Star Wars" movies, Dean Kamen's device is lightweight, self-contained and fully capable of picking up grapes, baby bottles, even electric drills.

Kamen says the Department of Defense approached him and his company, DEKA, in 2005 about the project, not the other way around.

"This guy visits and basically says, 'Look, we've had 1,600 kids go over [to Iraq] and lose an arm. Two dozen have lost two,'" Kamen tells Newsweek in a story for next week's issue. "'At the end of the Civil War, we gave them a hook on a stick. Now we give them a hook at the end of a plastic tube.'"

The Luke Arm has four fingers and an opposable thumb, and was designed to be controlled by muscular movement in the wearer's remaining limbs.

But thanks to neurological advances in "targeted renervation" by Dr. Todd Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the Luke Arm can now connect directly to motor nerves, meaning it can be controlled purely by thought alone.

And the nerve connections are two-way: The wearer gets "force feedback" about his own grip and movements, allowing him to pick up an empty water bottle without crushing it.

[Vipre]

The video link is nothing but impressive IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0_mLumx-6Y

[Centurus]

That's very cool, and great.  Certainly something that's overdue.

[Tus-XC]

And another one

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481092,00.html

A student who lost his left hand in an accident three years ago has been fitted with the world’s most sophisticated prosthetic limb.

Evan Reynolds, 19, took only minutes to learn how to manipulate the i-LIMB, which is operated by tiny sensors resting against his arm muscles.

With his new hand he can now pick up a paper cup filled with water, peel a carrot or walk down the street eating chips, all activities he could only dream about before.

The $15,000 i-LIMB was developed by the Scottish company Touch Bionics and Reynolds is only the second person in the U.K. to be fitted with one. Unlike previous prosthetics, the hand can tell how tightly it is gripping, allowing the user a large degree of control.

Reynolds, a sports biology student at University of the West of England, was in a friend’s car hanging his hand out of the window when it was taken off by a wooden gate post. His life was saved by his quick-thinking friends who applied a tourniquet and stopped him bleeding to death but the accident wrecked his dreams of joining the British Army.

The i-LIMB was introduced in 2007 and has won awards for its innovative technology. About 450 people, most in the United States, have been fitted with the prosthetic hand so far. Reynolds said it has given him a new lease on life.

“The accident was very nasty. My hand was amputated in a second,” he said.

"After the accident I'd resigned myself to never being able to use it again. But it truly has changed my life. It truly is incredible.”

Each finger of the i-LIMB is controlled by its own individual motors allowing a much more sensitive grip than previous prosthetics, which were limited to a claw-like action. It is fitted to the stump with a socket that contains the rechargeable battery and sensors that detect currents in the muscles which would have controlled the hand.

''It's so sensitive I can grip a bottle of water or a paper cup without crushing it and even swing a racket,” Reynolds said.

''All I have to do is imagine picking something up or gripping it and the fingers and thumb move automatically.”

Time Magazine named the i-LIMB as one of the Top 50 inventions of 2008 and Touch Bionics won the Limbless Association's Prosthetic Product Innovation Award for the product.

[Age]

Why not the Steve Austin arm.

[Lono]

Kamen is a bad ass!

It is just too bad that the military gets first dibs on all his advances...

(that's not bashing the troops - I just feel not all technologies should go into the classified netherworld of the DoD (like his sterling engine technology) when it could also provide huge dividends to the civilian world)

He is definately a great role model for geeks/nerds worldwide!