Revolutionizing Prosthetics: The AI-Powered Bionic Arm”
Growing up without lower arms and legs, I’ve had an intimate relationship with prosthetics. I’ve steered clear of upper-arm prosthetics for most of my adult life, but a visit to Atom Limbs in California, a company pushing the boundaries of bionic technology, piqued my curiosity. The experience was nothing short of mind-bending.
Prosthetic limbs have come a long way since their rudimentary wooden, tin, and leather beginnings. Modern-day replacements are made of silicone and carbon fiber, and the latest innovation is bionic, with electronically controlled moving parts. Atom Limbs, however, is taking it a step further by integrating advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), into their next-generation bionic arm.
Atom Limbs employs sophisticated sensors and machine learning to decipher electrical signals from a person’s brain and translate them into movements for the prosthetic limb. The arm boasts a full range of human motion in the elbow, wrist, and individual fingers, and it offers haptic feedback to the wearer, providing them with a sense of grip strength.
The arm attaches via a strengthened vest, distributing the weight evenly. Although it still has some weight, it is significantly lighter than other bionic arms I’ve encountered. It is non-invasive, requiring no surgery or implants to function. It connects to the wearer’s residual limb through bands of sensors that measure electrical signals and a cup that fits over the top, with the arm connecting via an interface.
Despite my reluctance to use upper-arm prosthetics, the opportunity to control a digital version of the arm on a computer screen, using Atom Limbs’ control software, intrigued me enough to give it a try. I possess residual muscles in my arm, which I was able to assign to corresponding hand, wrist, and elbow movements, resulting in a one-of-a-kind, mind-boggling experience.
Despite the excitement surrounding this technology, the ever-present concern for disabled individuals when new products emerge is cost. The landscape of assistive devices is dotted with impressive yet expensive products, often priced beyond the reach of many disabled people, who statistics show are more likely to be among the poorest in society.
Atom Limbs aims to position their arm around the $20,000 (£15,000) price point, a significant reduction compared to many other bionic products on the market. Ian Adam, a lecturer in prosthetics and orthotics at the University of Derby, acknowledges that while this may seem like a lot, it is a reasonable price in the industry. However, he also notes that the cost may be prohibitive for some.
“It’s at the cheaper end of the market, but consider someone who has had an accident and received a payout — that money has to last the rest of their life,” Adam explained. “So I think a lot of patients are cautious about what they spend their money on… sometimes people are quite content to not use them at all — with upper limb prosthetics, it can just be an extra thing that not everybody will decide they need to have.”
In 2022, Britt H Young, a bionic arm user, raised questions about the prosthetics “arms race” focusing too much on innovation rather than application. Social media star Tilly Lockey, who has been using bionic arms since she was 9 years old, is enthusiastic about their future potential but emphasizes the importance of testing.
“I’ve seen them evolve so much firsthand, but I’ve also seen them throughout the development phases,” Lockey shared with the BBC. “There’s a lot of ambitious projects, but I think the way they truly get there is the back-and-forth development from the users who actually wear them every day.”
As of now, the Atom Limbs arm is still in its developmental stages. The company is gathering data in preparation for regulatory filings in the US, meaning it will be some time before we witness them in everyday life.
source:https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68368439
