Coming Soon? The 100-Million-Dollar Robotic Arm

The Pentagon’s Defence Advances Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed a $100 million prosthetic arm controlled by the user’s thoughts through a microchip inserted in the brain. The arm is still undergoing tests but it could be made available to amputees as soon as four to five years. The device would greatly improve the lives of wounded or paralyzed soldiers, stroke victims and those with lost limbs.

The prosthetic arm is able to rotate, twist and bend in 27 different directions just like a normal arm. It can also preform “small, complex tasks like picking up and squeezing a palm-sized football, manipulating a wrench and pinching open a clothespin.” One of the main concerns is the brain’s rejection of the chip and the chip’s deterioration over the years, but with further research these will hopefully be solved.

As a biomedical engineer, I found this article very interesting because these are the things I could be doing some day. It also amazed me how precise and dexterous the arm going to be.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/11/coming-soon-the-100-million-dollar-robotic-arm/