Mind Control Prosthetic Arm
Imagine a chance to have an arm again after going years without one. How amazing would it be to one day have no arm, and the next have a working arm again. For those who have lost an arm due to injuries or disease, there is the new mind-controlled prosthetic arms to make their lives much easier. Over 100,000 Americans are missing limbs wether from disease or injury. What was once a mere idea is now a reality. When a patient was asked to think of a command for their arm to follow, the robotic arm responded("Johns"). Mind-controlled prosthetic arms will benefit those without limbs, make prosthetics easier to use, and feel more natural and comfortable than current prosthetics provided. The surgery procedures of inserting a prosthetic arm with mind controlling features require several difficult steps and procedures. First, a sheet of film the size of a credit card is attached to the part of the brain controlling that arm with 128 electrodes made to detect commands for the arm. A thorough and complicated test is taken to make certain that the film is positioned precisely where the brain signals the arm to
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avoid any malfunctions in the future. ("Johns"). After the film is placed on the brain, they can attach the arm directly to the bone without any straps to hold the arm to the patient. ("Mind"). This process is called osseointegration. Although the process takes time, the results are amazing. The functionality of the arm is not quite as simple as it may seem. It runs on a battery, using the film in the brain to transfer commands to the prosthetic arm. It's as simple as thinking a small command in seconds as you would a normal limb, and it will respond right away like a natural limb. The convenience of the mind-controlled aspect is that they don't rely on the working muscles and nerves in your arm, only on the commands of the prosthetic arm. Because of this, you can get a prosthetic arm no matter how long ago your arm was amputated. In fact, a man whose arm had been amputated over 14 years ago had a mind-controlled prosthetic arm attached with no hassle (“Man”). Although complicated to complete, the functionality of the prosthetic arm assists the easiest use of the arm. A mind-controlled prosthetic arm can move in any natural direction as a regular arm would.
They can pinch, open the hand and close it, rotate the wrist, and bend and move the arm ("First"). An accuracy test was taken on a patient to determine how well the arm would respond to the patient’s commands. The results came as 76% accuracy. The scientists found that when paired the pinky finger and the ring finger together, the accuracy bumped up from 76% to 88%. In the future, they plan to escalate the accuracy results as close to 100% as possible. Although we have fixed up some patients to have working and life-long prosthetics, there is still a ways away until we can be definite that they will work well for life. Mind-controlled prosthetics are becoming more and more natural through the years, making it much easier to use them as a natural
limb. There are many goals as far as future plans. They want to have the prosthetic arms released to the public 3 years from now. It may be difficult to get purchases at first because they cost around 120 million dollars. Plans are being made to reduce the price, but it may take a long time to reduce it. As far as appearance, to make them more natural, they would like to cover the arm with a skin-like cover without messing with the movement of the arm. In the farther future, they plan to completely eliminate the use or purchase of arm muscle-controlled prosthetics, and make way for the new, more advanced technology of the mind-controlled prosthetics. The future holds so many more opportunities to make them even better for people to use. Mind-controlled prosthetics will carry us into the future of more advanced technology. It's goal is exactly as technology is made to be: to make our lives easier. Out of respect for those who have missing arms and legs, we can provide a more advanced way of assisting them through their daily life, wether it be buying groceries, or doing their jobs. Our current work on robotic related technology will lead to more technology similar to this that can go from making an everyday task simpler to assisting in the saving of lives across the world.
avoid any malfunctions in the future. ("Johns"). After the film is placed on the brain, they can attach the arm directly to the bone without any straps to hold the arm to the patient. ("Mind"). This process is called osseointegration. Although the process takes time, the results are amazing. The functionality of the arm is not quite as simple as it may seem. It runs on a battery, using the film in the brain to transfer commands to the prosthetic arm. It's as simple as thinking a small command in seconds as you would a normal limb, and it will respond right away like a natural limb. The convenience of the mind-controlled aspect is that they don't rely on the working muscles and nerves in your arm, only on the commands of the prosthetic arm. Because of this, you can get a prosthetic arm no matter how long ago your arm was amputated. In fact, a man whose arm had been amputated over 14 years ago had a mind-controlled prosthetic arm attached with no hassle (“Man”). Although complicated to complete, the functionality of the prosthetic arm assists the easiest use of the arm. A mind-controlled prosthetic arm can move in any natural direction as a regular arm would.
They can pinch, open the hand and close it, rotate the wrist, and bend and move the arm ("First"). An accuracy test was taken on a patient to determine how well the arm would respond to the patient’s commands. The results came as 76% accuracy. The scientists found that when paired the pinky finger and the ring finger together, the accuracy bumped up from 76% to 88%. In the future, they plan to escalate the accuracy results as close to 100% as possible. Although we have fixed up some patients to have working and life-long prosthetics, there is still a ways away until we can be definite that they will work well for life. Mind-controlled prosthetics are becoming more and more natural through the years, making it much easier to use them as a natural
limb. There are many goals as far as future plans. They want to have the prosthetic arms released to the public 3 years from now. It may be difficult to get purchases at first because they cost around 120 million dollars. Plans are being made to reduce the price, but it may take a long time to reduce it. As far as appearance, to make them more natural, they would like to cover the arm with a skin-like cover without messing with the movement of the arm. In the farther future, they plan to completely eliminate the use or purchase of arm muscle-controlled prosthetics, and make way for the new, more advanced technology of the mind-controlled prosthetics. The future holds so many more opportunities to make them even better for people to use. Mind-controlled prosthetics will carry us into the future of more advanced technology. It's goal is exactly as technology is made to be: to make our lives easier. Out of respect for those who have missing arms and legs, we can provide a more advanced way of assisting them through their daily life, wether it be buying groceries, or doing their jobs. Our current work on robotic related technology will lead to more technology similar to this that can go from making an everyday task simpler to assisting in the saving of lives across the world.