Gizmodo
Here's what I recall about it. He was approached by Darpa to develop the worlds best prosthetic arm. Our men and women wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve it. We owe it to them.The General from Darpa gave Kamen basically this blue sky order: I want an arm that's so precise that a person could pick up a grape or a raisin and without looking be able to tell the difference.
At first Dean begged off. It was too hard, it was too resource intensive, DEKA had a lot of other projects on the table. But Dean said he'd go to military hospitals and meet with the people. He met with combat wounded and was so inspired by them and their courage in meeting the challenges of life missing one or two arms that he decided they'd give it the best shot they could.And so began DEKA's attempt to make the worlds best prosthetic limb, and do it with a very short timetable, to get it to the people who would need it.
Next Dean talked about control for this arm. He talked about brain implants and how bad an idea that was, going inside someone's skull. But then he talked about stem-cell research, and making a small implant that wouldn't be in the brain, but somewhere else in the body, maybe in the shoulder. Something that would be self-contained and communicate with the arm wirelessly. He named a research team at a big university, I forget which one. They were working on the stem-cell part of it. But, he cautioned, it may not work. The stem-cell research might not work, or it might not work in time to put it in this arm. But clearly this was the key to two-way neural contact. Control AND feeling.
So if that didn't work, or not in time, they had a number of other control schemes that they were looking at, and they were all better than the current standard.
At this point, Dean described what current motorized limbs were like. They strapped against a shoulder, and if they moved at all, they're controlled by kind of jamming the opposing shoulder which pulls the strapped limb so that a button gets pressed on it. If they're motorized they have a kind of a hook, or in some cases a cosmetic hand.
These hands are kind of one-size or a couple sizes and a couple of skin colors fit all.
So the first thing on Dean's list was that these would be the best looking prosthetic arms ever. Number one, these arms would match the person. And this would be achieved by taking a cyberscan of the other arm and making an exact mirror image. With nails, skin tone, size, bone size, everything matching. If the person didn't have another arm, a match would be found.
The next thing to tackle would be movement. From the looks of the video, this is coming along nicely. I wonder what the control scheme actually is on this video. I don't know. But I do know that they're shooting the moon.
And I don't think there was a dry eye while he was describing this to us. It was like watching the impossible become real.
Thanks for the update, tipster.
Comments
That is the most incredible thing I have ever seen. So, are we on schedule to activate Skynet?
@FrankenPC: Yes.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/12/skynet_pfi_launch/...
Bless you, Dean Kamen. While no one I know personally has need of such a device, it will bring hope to thousands around the world, who suffer from amputations or from birth defects to their limbs. You will be in their thoughts and prayers forever. No movie you'll ever participate in can begin to compare with this gift to humanity. Best of luck in the furthering of it's development!
wow, that arm movement was very fluid...i'm impressed.
looks much better then the current a prosthetic arms.
Dean Kamen is amazing. Sure, the Segway may not be a consumer hit, but it is a very impressive piece of engineering. In fact, when the Segway was being referred to in rumors as "It" and "Ginger", I suspect "Ginger" was the actual codename for the Segway.
"It" on the other hand may have been something totally different, and we may have seen it on TV without even realizing it.
Anyone watch "Eureka" on Sci-Fi Channel? Characters on the show are often seen driving a solar-powered car, the entire surface of which is actually one big solar battery. If you look closely at the car, the medallion on the hood says "It".
The question now is, when can I get my own "It" car, and will the artificial arm let me interface with it directly, a'la Robocop? ;)
This is the part that sticks out to me:
"But clearly this was the key to two-way neural contact. Control AND feeling."
Feeling? That would be indescribable...
I've actually met Dean a couple times, back when I was part of F.I.R.S.T. (http://www.usfirst.org/). And I have the signed hat to prove it! The man is very inspiring.
If you are interested in this stuff check this out:
http://www.ric.org/bionic/
This group is led by Todd Kuiken at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicage. They are the ones that are responsible for developing the control software for the prosthesis.
Basically the control works by remapping the lost limb's neurons onto a new muscle. People with shoulder disarticulations (amputees lacking in any part of the arm at and below the shoulder joint). For these patients the pectoralis (chest) muscle is no longer need so they remove the neural innveration to the muscle and reintroduce the motor axons from the arm on to the chest. The arm motor axons will then reattach to the chest muscle. Then, EMG sensors (which basically are electrodes attached to the muscle), pick up the activity in the fibers that are innervated by the motor axons. So lets say I want to flex my bicep - the motor axon responsible for carrying this signal will stimulate some portion of the chest muscle which is then picked up by the corresponding EMG sensor - reading this signal, the control software then moves the prosthesis arm joint responsible for this type of movement.
So this method allows a user to control their prosthetic limb much like they would their own limb. Therefore, the learning curve is fairly low.
Dean Kamen and the group from Drexel University's contribution to the project is to design and develop a lighter, more efficient, and aesthetically pleasing prosthesis. This video shows a demo of the second prototype. If you notice it looks like the person "using" the arm has both arms intact and the prosthesis is just sitting on top of his shoulder like some weird 3rd mutant arm. I don't know for sure but my guess would be that this video is just showing a demo of the prosthesis itself with prescribed movements and doesn't actually use the myoelectric control. Pretty cool stuff, though. With any luck this project will near completion in 2009.
Ghost in the Shell here we come..
that video is incredible! i really hope he's successful in developing that, as our armed forces and other injured citizens have been dealing with bad prosthetics for far too long.
I am Locutus of Borg... Resistance is futile.
Kamen's a genius, no doubt about it, and he's the right man for this job. I'm curious about the control mechanisms because that seems to be the biggest shortcoming of prosthetics today -- we have a lot of pretty sophisticated robotic arms in use already, and understand the best way to make joints move and whatnot, it's a matter of optimizing that for human use and working on the interface.
As for our troops deserving the best, I couldn't agree more. Why do I have a feeling that they won't get it? Oh yeah. Because they never do.
battery life?
After the day I've had today, it's nice to read about someone not devoting all of their effort to donkeypunching someone else. And I don't mean the good kind of donkeypunching.
So hooray for DARPA and the two token soldiers that will actually get one of these things.
If anybody could build this thing, it's Dean Kamen.
BTW, the title of this post is freaking hilarious. I pride myself on catching the obscure pop-culture references and this time I'll bet me and Mr. Chen are the only ones who got it.
A revolution in the field of prothetics. Bravo.
Now that you mentioned it. This was the line on Seinfeld that made Teri Hatcher (and her boobies) famous.
http://www.tv.com/seinfeld/the-implant/episode/2299/summar...
Dean Kamen should be tasked to work on global warming after this project. I bet the man could build some ozone repairing device that runs off cardon dioxide!
Teri Hatcher was famous waaaay before Seinfeld. maybe you remember a little show called MacGyver?
Kamen is my hero. Ever since I saw his iBot in action in the early 1990s and the reactions of people the first time they used it to let them do something that was taken away from them like be able to reach something on the top shelf, walk down stairs, etc.
I hope for the best for his efforts.
So how much is this going to cost? Is it only going to be available to disabled veterans, or will it be allowed for general consumption? Hmmm...
Here's an informative article. Read it!
The program is called Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2007 and funded by DARPA. They gave eighteen billion dollars to DEKA to create a neurally-controlled limb in two years. And there's a lot of other companies involved as well.
DARPA wants to give the prosthetics field in general a quantum jump forward. Looks like even if the project fails to meet it's timetable, it'll get a lot of results.
$18 million, not billion.
Im just thinking... what if some one lost both arms and legs. Robot legs to run 50miles a hour and arms wich can lift anything. Sounds like the combat gear for 2012..
@Jeff the Riffer:
Maybe with enough persuasion they can start getting them out like those power chairs that people get for free or close to it. After all, it would suck to come back and not be able to afford the thing.
@mfaerber:
I'm with you 100%. While the interfacing for control is incredible, the shining point of this invention would be linking sensation to it because all the control in the world would only be as useful as your other senses allowed. And without a sense of touch, you'd have to rely on sight and intuition alone to make sure you were doing it right instead of feeling it and knowing you're not going to drop/break/crush something.
DARPA also commissioned a second project, revolutionizing prosthetics 2009, which you can read a little bit about here
http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/biosci/revprost.htm
and
http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/aplnews/2006/prostheticar...
and
http://www.neurotechreports.com/pages/darpaprosthetics.htm...
There are currently 2 people using the RIC re-innervation surgery, coupled with the prototype arms to help the researchers on these projects test and develop better controls and feedback.
If you read the neurotechreports article (which jeff mentioned earlier), you should get a picture of the quality of the program, many of the intellectual standout institutions are involved in this project. Not one or two, but dozens.
Its really not fair to DARPA to rip on them for 'two token soldiers' This project has been in the work for quite some time (much before the recent walter reed scandals) and some of the technologies that are being used here flat out didn't exist 2 or 3 years ago.
It might be one or two soldiers who recieve the prototype arms in the next couple of years, but ask yourself how many people you see driving around in Concept cars . . . Then ask yourself how many people end up with the 'consumer' version of that car, 5 years down the road for 1/50th the cost, and 90% of the function?
I know that I am extremely confident in this program producing results within the next couple of years.
-Doc
Just a late update... Kamen was in Honolulu today, and spoke at Oceanit (a local high-tech firm) to a group of Hawaii business and tech leaders. Part of his presentation included the robotic arm. I thought I'd pass along a video clip from today's talk, which included some background and another look at those robotic arm clips from TED that hit the web in April.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hzRja9eunY
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