Bionics  

Researchers have tested 3D printing directly onto our bodies. In the work, a pressure sensor was printed directly on a dummy hand is a step toward new biomedical devices, "on the fly" wearable technology, and more.

Wearable technology may soon be at your fingertips, and we mean literally. Researchers have developed a new pressure sensor that can be 3D printed directly onto your hand. The device is sensitive enough to detect a pulse and is made from soft, stretchy silicone that conforms to the curves of your fingertip.

"Using only raw materials, you can make basically any type of device -- that's a complete paradigm shift that hasn't been implemented before."

According to Michael McAlpine, a materials scientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, it is a step toward a more seamless integration of human and machine, His team has only printed out the devices on dummy hands for now. "But," he said, "it sets the stage for future work in 3D printing electronic devices directly on the body."

This 3D printing method was part of research published recently in the journal Advanced Materials. It could produce gadgets without the cleanrooms and fancy equipment needed to make most devices today, McAlpine said.

"You can print electronics directly on the body out in the field, using something you carry around in your backpack," he said. "Using only raw materials, you can make basically any type of device -- that's a complete paradigm shift that hasn't been implemented before."

Conventional 3D printing uses liquid plastic which are much too hot when melted for printing and too stiff after cooling to work with the body. In recent years, though, researchers have also explored using other kinds of "ink" to 3D print everything from batteries to biological tissues.

What's unique about the new tactile sensor, is the combination of soft, stretchable silicone-based ink that firms up at room temperature, and the ability to print on the complex, curved surface of an artificial hand.

While the sensor itself is relatively simple, serving mainly as a demonstration of the 3D printing technique, the researchers showed it's good enough to feel a real human pulse.

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More sophisticated versions could be printed onto the ends of surgical tools to give a surgeon a virtual sense of touch during an operation, McAlpine suggested. Such a system would be helpful in laparoscopic surgery, for example, a minimally invasive procedure in which the surgeon operates through small incisions in the body, aided only by a video camera inserted into the patient.

In the more distant future, a tactile sensor might give you an enhanced sense of touch. Hooked to a neural feedback system, it might also return some feeling to, say, a burn victim. Or, a sensor on a robot could give it the ability to feel.

Even before 3D printing on your body becomes a thing, the research does have great potential for the development of more pliant devices. Also, the ability to print functional things on curved surfaces will allow for the integration of 3D printing with other technologies that are prolific in our world.

The researchers are now working on a method to 3D print on a moving surface, like a real human hand that naturally trembles a little. Ultimately, they want to use this technique to 3-D print integrated devices, containing multiple types of sensors and a power source, for example. An individual device such as this tactile sensor, McAlpine said, is just the beginning.

SOURCE  American Institute of Physics

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Bionics  

A team of engineers and scientists have developed an artificial skin capable of detecting temperature changes.  Using a mechanism similar to that used by pit vipers to sense prey, the new biomimetic skin has a sensitivity that is about 200 times better than existing artificial skins.

A team of engineers and scientists at Caltech and ETH Zurich have developed a new artificial skin capable of detecting temperature changes using a mechanism similar to the one used by the organ that allows pit vipers to sense their prey.

The material may one day be grafted onto prosthetic limbs to restore temperature sensing in amputees. It could also be applied to first-aid bandages to alert health professionals of a temperature increase—a sign of infection—in wounds.

A paper about the new material will be published in Science Robotics.

While fabricating synthetic wood in a petri dish, a team led by Caltech's Chiara Daraio created a material that exhibited an electrical response to temperature changes in the lab. It turned out that the component responsible for the temperature sensitivity was pectin, a long-chain molecule present in plant cell walls.

"Pectin is widely used in the food industry as a jellifying agent; it's what you use to make jam. So it's easy to obtain and also very cheap," says Daraio, professor of mechanical engineering and applied physics in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science.

Intrigued, the team shifted its attention to pectin and ultimately created a thin, transparent flexible film of pectin and water, which can be as little as 20 micrometers thick. Pectin molecules in the film have a weakly bonded double-strand structure that contains calcium ions. As temperature increases, these bonds break down and the double strands "unzip," releasing the positively charged calcium ions.

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Either the increased concentration of free calcium ions or their increased mobility, or both results in a decrease in the electrical resistance throughout the material, which can be detected with a multimeter connected to electrodes embedded in the film.

The film senses temperature using a mechanism similar—but not identical—to the pit organs in vipers, which allow the snakes to sense warm prey in the dark by detecting radiated heat. In those organs, ion channels in the cell membrane of sensory nerve fibers expand as temperature increases. This dilation allows calcium ions to flow, triggering electrical impulses.

Existing electronic skins can sense temperature changes of less than a tenth of a degree Celsius across a 5-degree temperature range. The new skin can sense changes that are an order of magnitude smaller and have a responsivity that is two orders of magnitude larger than those of other electronic skins over a 45-degree temperature range.

So far, the skin is capable of detecting these tiny changes across a range of temperatures roughly between 5 to 50 degrees Celsius (about 41 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit), which is useful for robotics and biomedical applications.

Next, Daraio's team would like to boost the temperature. This would make pectin sensors useful for industrial applications, such as thermal sensors in consumer electronics or robotic skins to augment human-robot interactions. To do so, they will need to change the fabrication process they now use to create the material, as that process leads to the presence of water—which tends to bubble or evaporate at high temperatures.

SOURCE  Caltech

By  33rd Square

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Futurology  

Futurist Juan Enriquez asks: Is it ethical to evolve the human body? In a visionary TED talk that ranges from medieval prosthetics to present day neuroengineering and genetics, Enriquez sorts out the ethics associated with evolving humans and imagines the ways we'll have to transform our own bodies if we hope to explore and live in places other than Earth.

When Juan Enriquez gives a TED Talk, it is always worth checking out. In his latest, Enriquez examines medieval prosthetics to present day neuroengineering and genetics, and sorts out the ethics associated with evolving humans and imagines the ways we'll have to transform our own bodies if we hope to explore and live in places other than Earth.

"When you're talking about a heart pacemaker as a prosthetic, you're talking about something that isn't just, 'I'm missing my leg,' it's, 'if I don't have this, I can die.' And at that point, a prosthetic becomes a symbiotic relationship with the human body," states Enriquez.

Enriquez has a talent for bridging disciplines to build a coherent look ahead. He is the managing director of Excel Venture Management, a life sciences VC firm. He is a member of the board of Synthetic Genomics, which recently introduced the smallest synthetic living cell. Called “JCVI-syn 3.0,” it has 473 genes (about half the previous smallest cell). The organism would die if one of the genes is removed. In other words, this is the minimum genetic instruction set for a living organism.

"All of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits that allow you to take little portions of it until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different."

In the talk (video below), Enriquez mentions the new MIT Media Lab Center for Extreme Bionics headed up by Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr, Joe Jacobson, and Bob Lander. Bionic prosthetics are now being integrated into bone, muscle and skin. Boyden been examining how to connect bionics directly into the brain using light or other mechanisms "If you can do that, then you can begin changing fundamental aspects of humanity," says Enriquez.

Enriquez, co-author of Evolving Ourselves: Redesigning the Future of Humanity--One Gene at a Time, also discusses genomics work being done by the likes of George Church and others. Using genetic engineering and regenerative medicine, the promise is becoming open for more than just simple fixes to our DNA. We are on the forefront of potentially being able to rewrite our code completely.

All of a sudden, what we're doing is we've got this multidimensional chess board where we can change human genetics by using viruses to attack things like AIDS, or we can change the gene code through gene therapy to do away with some hereditary diseases, or we can change the environment, and change the expression of those genes in the epigenome and pass that on to the next generations. And all of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits that allow you to take little portions of it until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different.

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Enriquez brilliantly links the work being done in genomics and bionics to the development of humanity to the next levels of the Kardashev scale. The scale was originally designed in 1964 by the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev, who was searching for signs of extraterrestrial life in cosmic signals.

The Kardashev scale has three main classes, each with an energy disposal level: Type I (10¹⁶W), Type II (10²⁶W), and Type III (10³⁶W), a civilization in possession of energy on the scale of its own galaxy. Other astronomers have extended the scale to Type IV and Type V. Due to the necessities of space travel, Type II and Type III civilizations alters fundamental aspects of their bodies. "We can't even begin to imagine what that might look like," says Enriquez, "But we're beginning to get glimpses of instruments that might take us even that far."

SOURCE  TED

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Bionics  

New research may provide the blueprint for building neuroprosthetic devices that recreate the sense of touch via bionic touch. By directly stimulating the nervous system, scientists have been able to produce realistic sensations to test patients.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University have found a way to produce realistic sensations of touch in two human amputees by directly stimulating the nervous system.

The work, which was published recently in the journal Science Translational Medicine, backs up earlier research on how the nervous system encodes the intensity, or magnitude, of sensations. It is the second of two groundbreaking publications this month by University of Chicago neuroscientist Sliman Bensmaia, PhD, using neuroprosthetic devices to recreate the sense of touch for amputee or quadriplegic patients with a “biomimetic” approach that approximates the natural, intact nervous system.

Also in a separate publication from STM, Bensmaia and a team led by Robert Gaunt, PhD, from the University of Pittsburgh, announced that for the first time, a paralyzed human patient was able to experience the sense of touch through a robotic arm that he controls with his brain.

In that study, the researchers interfaced directly with the patient’s brain, through an electrode array implanted in the areas of the brain responsible for hand movements and for touch, which allowed the man to both move the robotic arm and feel objects through it. This work was done to understand how an uninjured hand's nervous system communicates and encodes information during tasks.

With such knowledge, the research teams were able to fill in the gaps in the process for patients with amputations, and help them feel the sensation of touch through a surrogate bionic prosthetic.

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Working with two male subjects who each lost an arm after traumatic injuries, both subjects were implanted with neural interfaces in their arms. The electrodes were embedded to the median, ulnar and radial nerves of the arm. Those are the same nerves that would carry signals from the hand were it still intact.

“If you want to create a dexterous hand for use in an amputee or a quadriplegic patient, you need to not only be able to move it, but have sensory feedback from it,” said Bensmaia, who is an associate professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago. “To do this, we first need to look at how the intact hand and the intact nervous system encodes this information, and then, to the extent that we can, try to mimic that in a neuroprosthesis.”

Image Source: Graczyk et al,Science Translational Medicine.

Results from the new study verified the teams overall hypothesis: A single feature of electrical stimulation—dubbed the activation charge rate—was found to determine the strength of the sensation. By changing the activation charge rate, the team could change sensory magnitude in a highly predictable way. The team then showed that the activation charge rate was also closely related to the evoked population spike rate.

"Results from this study constitute a first step towards conveying finely graded information about contact pressure."

The work also points to the fact that artificial touch will only be as good as the devices providing input. In a separate paper published earlier this year in IEEE Transactions on Haptics, Bensmaia and his team tested the sensory abilities of a robotic fingertip equipped with touch sensors.

Bensmaia’s team tested the finger’s ability to distinguish different touch locations, different pressure levels, the direction and speed of surfaces moving across it and the identity of textures scanned across it. The robotic finger (with the help of machine learning algorithms) proved to be almost as good as a human at most of these sensory tasks.

Combining such high-quality input with the algorithms and data Bensmaia and his team produced in the other study, may help in building neuroprosthetics that approximate natural sensations of touch project the researchers. Bensmaia even projects that they may one day produce enough granularity in bionic touch sensations to even play a musical instrument.

“The idea is that if we can reproduce those signals exactly, the amputee won’t have to think about it, he can just interact with objects naturally and automatically. Results from this study constitute a first step towards conveying finely graded information about contact pressure,” Bensmaia said.

SOURCE  The University of Chicago

By  33rd Square

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Brain-Machine Interface  

Biomedical scientists have successfully demonstrated a robotic prosthetic brain-machine interface that allowed a subject to move the individual fingers of a prosthetic hand with their thoughts.

Johns Hopkins physicians and biomedical engineers have reported what they believe is the first successful effort to wiggle fingers individually and independently of each other on a mind-controlled robotic arm without a large amount of training.

"We believe this is the first time a person using a mind-controlled prosthesis has immediately performed individual digit movements without extensive training."

The results of the study which are, published in the Journal of Neural Engineering, represents a potential advance in technologies to restore refined hand function to those who have lost arms to injury or disease. The subject of the experiment, which can be seen in a video below, was  not missing an arm or hand, but he was outfitted with a device that essentially took advantage of a brain-mapping procedure to bypass control of his own arm and hand.

“We believe this is the first time a person using a mind-controlled prosthesis has immediately performed individual digit movements without extensive training,” says senior author Nathan Crone, M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “This technology goes beyond available prostheses, in which the artificial digits, or fingers, moved as a single unit to make a grabbing motion, like one used to grip a tennis ball.

During the experiment, the research team enlisted a young man with epilepsy already scheduled to undergo brain mapping at The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Epilepsy Monitoring Unit to pinpoint the origin of his seizures.

While brain recordings were made using electrodes surgically implanted for clinical reasons, the signals also control a modular prosthetic limb. Before connecting the prosthesis, the researchers mapped and tracked the specific parts of the subject’s brain responsible for moving each finger, then programmed the prosthesis to move the corresponding finger.

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For the procedure, the patient’s neurosurgeon placed an array of 128 electrode sensors — all on a single rectangular sheet of film the size of a credit card — on the part of the man’s brain that normally controls hand and arm movements. Each sensor measured a circle of brain tissue 1 millimeter in diameter.

A computer program then had the man move individual fingers on command and recorded which parts of the brain the “lit up” when each sensor detected an electric signal.

The researchers also measured electrical brain activity involved in the patient's sense of touch. The subject was outfitted with a glove with small, vibrating buzzers in the fingertips, which went off in each finger. The researchers then measured the resulting electrical activity in the brain for each finger connection.

Using this data, the researchers programmed the robotic arm to move corresponding fingers based on which part of the brain was active. Turning on the prosthetic arm, which was wired to the patient through the brain electrodes, they then asked the subject to “think” about individually moving thumb, index, middle, ring and pinkie fingers. The electrical activity generated in the brain moved the fingers.

The researchers claim there was no pre-training required for the subject to gain this level of control, and the entire experiment took less than two hours.

At first, the brain-machine interface had an accuracy of 76 percent, but once the researchers coupled the ring and pinkie fingers together, the accuracy increased to 88 percent.

“The part of the brain that controls the pinkie and ring fingers overlaps, and most people move the two fingers together,” says Crone. “It makes sense that coupling these two fingers improved the accuracy.”

Crone cautions that application of this technology to those actually missing limbs is still some years off and will be costly, requiring extensive neural mapping and computer programming. Despite the work needed, the research is impressive.

SOURCE  Johns Hopkins Medicine

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Brain Implants  

In a development being called the "holy grail of bionics," researchers have made a brain-machine interface device that does not require invasive brain surgery.  The stent-based electrode or, stentrode, is implanted within a blood vessel next to the brain, and records neural activity directly.

Medical researchers have created a new minimally invasive brain-machine interface, giving people with spinal cord injuries new hope to walk again with the power of thought. The DARPA funded device consists of a stent-based electrode, or stentrode, which is implanted within a blood vessel next to the brain, and records the type of neural activity that has been shown in pre-clinical trials to move limbs through an exoskeleton or to control bionic limbs.

The new device is the size of a small paperclip and will be implanted in the first in-human trial at The Royal Melbourne Hospital next year.

Traditional electrode arrays are implanted into the brain through a surgical procedure that requires opening the skull, but the stentrode is delivered via catheter angiography, a much lower-risk procedure.

To implant the device a catheter is inserted into a blood vessel in the neck. Researchers then use real-time imaging to guide the stentrode to a precise location in the brain, where the stentrode then expands and attaches to the walls of the blood vessel to read the activity of nearby neurons.

The stentrode technology leverages well-established techniques from the field of endovascular surgery, which uses blood vessels as portals for accessing deep structures while greatly reducing trauma associated with open surgery. Endovascular techniques are routinely used for surgical repair of damaged blood vessels and for installation of devices such as stents and stimulation electrodes for cardiac pacemakers.

The results published in Nature Biotechnology show the device is capable of recording high-quality signals emitted from the brain’s motor cortex, without the need for open brain surgery.

"We have been able to create the world’s only minimally invasive device that is implanted into a blood vessel in the brain via a simple day procedure, avoiding the need for high risk open brain surgery."

Principal author and Neurologist at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Research Fellow at The Florey Institute of Neurosciences and the University of Melbourne, Dr Thomas Oxley, said the stentrode was revolutionary.

“The development of the stentrode has brought together leaders in medical research from The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The University of Melbourne and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. In total 39 academic scientists from 16 departments were involved in its development,” Dr Oxley said.

“We have been able to create the world’s only minimally invasive device that is implanted into a blood vessel in the brain via a simple day procedure, avoiding the need for high risk open brain surgery.

“Our vision, through this device, is to return function and mobility to patients with complete paralysis by recording brain activity and converting the acquired signals into electrical commands, which in turn would lead to movement of the limbs through a mobility assist device like an exoskeleton. In essence this a bionic spinal cord.”

Co-principal investigator and biomedical engineer at the University of Melbourne, Dr Nicholas Opie, said the concept was similar to an implantable cardiac pacemaker – electrical interaction with tissue using sensors inserted into a vein, but inside the brain.

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“Utilizing stent technology, our electrode array self-expands to stick to the inside wall of a vein, enabling us to record local brain activity. By extracting the recorded neural signals, we can use these as commands to control wheelchairs, exoskeletons, prosthetic limbs or computers,” Dr Opie said.

“In our first-in-human trial, that we anticipate will begin within two years, we are hoping to achieve direct brain control of an exoskeleton for three people with paralysis.”

“Currently, exoskeletons are controlled by manual manipulation of a joystick to switch between the various elements of walking – stand, start, stop, turn. The stentrode will be the first device that enables direct thought control of these devices”

Professor Terry O’Brien, Head of Medicine at Departments of Medicine and Neurology, The Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne said the development of the stentrode has been the “holy grail” for research in bionics.

“To be able to create a device that can record brainwave activity over long periods of time, without damaging the brain is an amazing development in modern medicine,” Professor O’Brien said.

“It can also be potentially used in people with a range of diseases aside from spinal cord injury, including epilepsy, Parkinsons and other neurological disorders.”

The study results demonstrate measurement of brain signals with the stentrode that are quantitatively similar to measurements made by commercially available surface electrocorticography arrays implanted during open-brain surgery. Additionally, the study achieved chronic recordings in freely moving sheep for up to 190 days, indicating that implantation of the device could be safe for long-term use.

SOURCE  The University of Melbourne

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Bioinics  

Human integrated robotics are opening a new world for those with disabilities. A new crowd funded project hopes to take you on one man's journey into this world.

For many imagining a world where humanoid robots assist us every day in doing tasks that are difficult, dangerous or just boring is not far off.  The androids at the DARPA Robotics Challenge may have been falling down more than succeeding this summer, but they have come a long way, and are offering a real glimpse of the possibilities.  Perhaps more importantly, the computer systems and smart software are also rapidly catching up to meed this incredibly complex challenge.

For some, the promise of advances in robotics is especially critical.  Coupled with developments in brain computer interfaces (BCI), machine intelligence, neuroscience, and computer vision, technologies are rapidly converging making possible bionic dreams.

In a new Kickstarter project, one team is hoping to share just how much of an impact robotic prosthetics can have on a life.

Dr. Tom Wachtel was a Navy Flight Surgeon who served in Vietnam, and retired in 1998 after 37 years of service. Wachtel has written nine medical books, 22 book chapters and more than 150 scientific papers on: burns, trauma, wound healing, nutrition, death and dying, and medical education.

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Additionally he was an academic Trauma Director for 27 years. As a Trauma Surgeon he led multiple military medical units, and mentored many medical students and surgery residents, including Dr. Albert Chi.

In 2008, while volunteering to fill a critical staff shortage of trauma surgeons at the University of Arizona Medical Center, in Tucson, AZ, Tom suffered a neck injury that left him paralyzed. For the first time in his life, a man who dedicated his life to serve the needs of others now needed assistance to perform even the most basic tasks.

Then early in 2014, Dr. Chi visited Wachtel and showed him some exciting results from research at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) that is revolutionizing the way humans interact with machines.

Chi was recently on the team that provided incredible two robotic thought-controlled arm prostheses to Les Baugh, a double amputee.

"The problem that somebody that has an amputation or spinal cord injury isn't that they can't think about moving and/or many more sense they physically can't do it their number things we think the technology can do."

Wachtel was excited to try it out for himself, but the distance between Baltimore and Phoenix made this impractical. So we embarked on a mission to make his dream come true. The crowd-funded documentary shows how we can bring this technology to Wachtel, explore the impact of these advances, and follow hiss journey into this amazing new world.

For instance, a set of robotic arms could help him use his fingers for the first time in seven years. Through intensive therapy, Wachtel has regained some movement. He can lift his arms. But he still can’t use his fingers.

"The problem that somebody that has an amputation or spinal cord injury isn't that they can't think about moving and/or many more sense they physically can't do it their number things we think the technology can do," states Michael McLoughlin, one of the researchers behind the robotic system at Johns Hopkins,

Wachtel hopes robotic arms will allow him to brush his teeth and comb his hair and perhaps use a regular spoon instead of the adaptive version he uses, attached to a piece of circular plastic that fits around his hand.

The robotics firm, Harmony Robotics intends to use tele-operated bimanual robotic platform with human-like capability to bring this capability into Wachtel's home.

Harmony Robotic's system, Transcend, will control a high-dexterity robotic arm, such as the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) developed by JHU/APL. In the project they intend to demonstrate the ability to conduct ordinary activities, such as pouring a cup of coffee or reading the sports page, or holding the hand of a loved one - activities that most of us take for granted.

SOURCE  Transcendent Robotics on Kickstarter

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 Bionics  

Technology from Formula 1 is changing the life of a woman in England. Nicky Ashwell was born without a right hand. But she's just been fitted with the most advanced bionic replacement ever made. It's smaller, lighter and more lifelike than any other. And, it's allowing Nicky to do things she's never been able to do before.

Nicky Ashwell was born without a right hand and previously used a cosmetic prosthetic that she was not able to move.

Now she’s been fitted with what has been described as the world's most life-like bionic hand – meaning she can ride a bike for the first time.

Related articles Working to Restore Touch with a Prosthetic Hand The Bionic Revolution  Researchers Examine Augmenting the Body With Musical Prosthetics

The anatomically accurate limb developed by prosthetic experts Steeper is seen as a bionic breakthrough, using Formula 1 technology to deliver "unrivalled level of precision and natural movements".

"When I first tried the Bebionic small hand it was an exciting and strange feeling - it immediately opened up so many more possibilities for me," said Ashwell.

"I realized that I had been making life challenging for myself when I didn't need to."

"I realized that I had been making life challenging for myself when I didn't need to."

Weighing around 390g, the smaller model Bebionic hand is 165mm from base to middle fingertip - the size of an average woman's hand - and contains 337 mechanical parts.

It is strong enough to handle up to 45kg - around the same as 25 bricks - and has 14 grip patterns and hand positions to allow a range of precision movements.

The Bebionic small hand works using sensors triggered by the user’s muscle movements that connect to individual motors in each finger and powerful microprocessors. The technology comprises a unique system which tracks and senses each finger through its every move – mimicking the functions of a real hand.

Ted Varley, Technical Director at Steeper, the bionic hand's manufacturer said, “Looking to the future, there’s a trend of technology getting more intricate; Steeper has embraced this and created a smaller hand with advanced technology that is suitable for women and teenagers. An accurate skeletal structure was firstly developed, with the complex technology then specifically developed to fit within this in order to maintain anatomical accuracy. In other myoelectric hands the technology is developed first, at the expense of the lifelikeness.”

"The movements now come easily and look natural - I keep finding myself being surprised by the little things, like being able to carry my purse while holding my boyfriend's hand."

Image Source - Laura Lean/PA

SOURCE  The Guardian, Steeper

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 Bionics  

Seven-year-old Alex Pring, got a personal delivery when his favorite superhero showed up to give him a working Iron Man bionic arm.

Tony Stark, AKA Robot Downey Jr., will probably always be a superhero in the eyes of 7-year-old Alex Pring, who was born with a partially developed right arm.

In the video above, Downey dressed as Tony Stark and staying in character, presents Alex with a fully functional Iron Man bionic arm. The arm was made by Albert Manero, a volunteer for the non-profit organization Limbitless Solutions.

“My parents always encouraged me to use my education to help others and to dream big dreams,” says Manero, a Fulbright scholar and doctoral student in mechanical engineering at the University of Central Florida. “Now I want to inspire others to help engineer hope for the world.”

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Limbitless Solutions is an engineering community devoted to changing lives through the innovation of new bionic arm designs and development of a worldwide network of makers and thinkers. They operate as volunteers under E-nable, an already global network of engineers and 3D print enthusiasts who share our enthusiasm for the 3D maker movement.

The organization's mission is "to create a world without limits, where everyone has access to the tools necessary to manufacture simple, affordable, and accessible solutions through open source design and 3D printing."

Alex with arm maker, Albert Manero

Manero says each bionic limb he builds takes 50-70 hours to print and about 12 hours to put together. He’d been working with Alex’s family to perfect the arm, which is fully operational and is controlled by Alex flexing his biceps.

Downey is getting a lot of the credit with this story, but the real hero here is Manero and Limbitless Solutions.

SOURCE  The Collective Project

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 Bionics  

Three Austrian men have become the first in the world to undergo a new technique called "bionic reconstruction", enabling them to use a robotic prosthetic hand controlled by their mind. All three men suffered for many years with brachial plexus injuries and poor hand function as a result of motor vehicle and climbing accidents.

Three Austrian men have become the first in the world to undergo a new technique called "bionic reconstruction," enabling them to use a robotic prosthetic hand controlled by their mind, according to new research published in The Lancet. All three men suffered for many years with brachial plexus injuries and poor hand function as a result of motor vehicle and climbing accidents.

The new technique was developed by Professor Oskar Aszmann, Director of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Restoration of Extremity Function at the Medical University of Vienna, together with engineers from the Department of Neurorehabilitation Engineering of the University Medical Center Goettingen. It combines selective nerve and muscle transfers, elective amputation, and replacement with an advanced robotic prosthesis (using sensors that respond to electrical impulses in the muscles). Following comprehensive rehabilitation, the technique restored a high level of function, in all three recipients, aiding in activities of daily living.

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"In effect, brachial plexus avulsion injuries represent an inner amputation, irreversibly separating the hand from neural control. Existing surgical techniques for such injuries are crude and ineffective and result in poor hand function," explains Professor Aszmann. "The scientific advance here was that we were able to create and extract new neural signals via nerve transfers amplified by muscle transplantation. These signals were then decoded and translated into solid mechatronic hand function."

Before amputation, all three patients spent an average of nine months undergoing cognitive training, firstly to activate the muscles, and then to use the electrical signals to control a virtual hand. Once they had mastered the virtual environment, they practiced using a hybrid hand—a prosthetic hand attached to a splint-like device fixed to their non-functioning hand.

"The scientific advance here was that we were able to create and extract new neural signals via nerve transfers amplified by muscle transplantation. These signals were then decoded and translated into solid mechatronic hand function."

Three months after amputation, robotic prostheses gave all three recipients substantially better functional movement in their hands, improved quality of life, and less pain. For the first time since their accidents all three men were able to accomplish various everyday tasks such as picking up a ball, pouring water from a jug, using a key, cutting food with a knife, or using two hands to undo buttons.

Brachial plexus injuries occur when the nerves of the brachial plexus—the network of nerves that originate in the neck region and branch off to form the nerves that control movement and sensation in the upper limbs, including the shoulder, arm, forearm, and hand—are damaged. Brachial plexus injuries often occur as a result of trauma from high speed collisions, especially in motorcycle accidents, and in collision sports such as rugby and football.

According to Aszmann, "So far, bionic reconstruction has only been done in our centre in Vienna. However, there are no technical or surgical limitations that would prevent this procedure from being done in centres with similar expertise and resources."

Writing in a linked comment on the article, Professor Simon Kay who carried out the UK's first hand transplant, and Daniel Wilks from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds, UK said, "The present findings—and others—are encouraging, because this approach provides additional neural inputs into prosthetic systems that otherwise would not exist. However, the final verdict will depend on long-term outcomes, which should include assessment of in what circumstances and for what proportion of their day patients wear and use their prostheses. Compliance declines with time for all prostheses, and motorized prostheses are heavy, need power, and are often noisy, as well as demanding skilled repair when damaged."


SOURCE  Alpha Galileo

By 33rd Square

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 Exoskeletons  

Exoskeletons started as a military application, but are now helping the disabled walk.  According to the developers of the technology, exoskeletons will soon be used in industrial applications and more.

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mong the electronic gadgets on display at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas were Ekso Bionics and ReWalk Robotics, exhibiting their exoskeleton products.

What started out as a military application helping soldiers carry large loads has developed into applications in medicine, rehabilitation, construction and in the near future, possibly even sports.

“We see the world of robotics as having a giant wave of human augmentation coming right at it,” said Nate Harding chief executive and co-founder of Ekso Bionics at CES in Las Vegas.

"In five years you’ll see exoskeletons on the building site and on the medical side, someone with paralysis will be using one to get around a party."

“People will be running faster, jumping further and grannies will be showing off their new hip exoskeleton.”“Our technology started in the military, carrying heavy loads and with our partners Lockheed Martin we’re still doing that. But we melded technologies from people for athletics and people with paralysis to aid people with stroke to walk again,” said Harding.

Military applications of exosuits are also rapidly developing. Lockheed Martin has received a contract for the U.S. Navy to evaluate and test two of its iron man-like exoskeletons for potential use in naval shipyard (see video below).

“It’s about wrapping a robot around a person,” explained Harding. “We know it will have a very positive affect the long term health of people who are stuck in wheel chairs."

Related articles Researchers Examine Augmenting the Body With Musical Prosthetics  Synthetic Biology Research Expanding  Craig Mundie on How Tomorrow's Technologies Will Shape Our World

Exoskeletons have clear health benefits for paralyzed users by minimizing pressure sores from sitting too long, increasing cardiovascular health, building lean muscle mass and improving bowel function. It is postulated that exoskeleton costs are more than offset by the savings in medical treatment associated with wheelchair use.

The initial consumer market for robotic exoskeletons is the 270,000 people in the U.S. with spinal cord injuries, says Jodi Gricci, vice president of global marketing for ReWalk. There's a similar number of paraplegics in Europe, she told IBD.

The ReWalk exoskeleton provides three hours of continuous walking with its main battery and 30 to 60 minutes on its auxiliary battery. It's designed to be charged overnight, Gricci said

“Now we’re looking at industrial applications – for construction crews holding heavy tools or working on overhead surfaces," described Harding. "That’s our next stage to attack. In five years you’ll see exoskeletons on the building site and on the medical side, someone with paralysis will be using one to get around a party.”




SOURCE  The Guardian

By 33rd Square

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