Monkeys Treat Robot Arm as Their Own
Industry news, originally posted 16-05-2005. Rather than simply manipulating a robotic device, an organic brain incorporates a robotic limb as though it was born with it attached.

SAPBER: Robotic Bomb Disposal
Robotic sniffers have been available for some time, to trundle on down to a suspected bomb and examine the site. However, whilst they can lift the bomb up, or trigger it, such robots have never been able to disarm the bombs safely, much less disarm them and preserve all evidence. That task has always taken a human bomb expert, and presents a risk to life and limb. A new bomb disposal robot is attempting to fill that gap, by interacting with the sniffer robot, and disarming the bomb itself from a safe distance.

Virtual Pain Relief: Virtual limb could provide relief from phantom limb pain
Reproduced with permission of The Wellcome Trust, this article takes a look in depth at the use of VR based limbs, to trick the brain into thinking the limb is still physically there - and make the pain vanish.

The dream of a prosthetic limb that touches and feels like a natural limb, is still some ways away. A natural arm or leg processes sensory data at a rate we just do not have the bandwidth to recreate, much less tie into the human nervous system. That said however, significant progress has already been made, and development continues at a rapidly accelerating pace.

This is an edited book comprised of the works of specialists around the globe. It concentrates exclusively on myoelectrically powered upper limb prostheses ? those powered by utilising inherent electrical signals within the patient?s muscle, and as such, goes into all the detail you could ever ask for on these devices.

The i-Limb, made by Touch Bionics, is one of the more advanced prosthetic hands. Its makers claim its the world's most advanced bionic hand. Whilst this claim does not hold water, it is certainly, at time of release in mid 2007, one of the most advanced hands, although not the most advanced - that honour goes to a DARPA military development.

A primer on limb prosthetics, is designed as a scientific aside, almost a technical manual for how life with a prosthetic will change, going into a great deal of detail on each kind of prosthetic, using medical and general notational jargon, as it discusses each joint?s prosthetisement, in a clinical, step by step manner.

A resource list, dedicated to chronicling the efforts of recreating severed limbs via virtual reality, so as to fool the brain into believing the limb is still attached, and thus eliminating the chronic pain, with sensations of stabbing, burning or cutting which are often severe, that 65% of amputees suffer.

Improving Robotic Surgery by integrating Augmented Reality Elements
Robotic surgical procedures are carried out with the aid of a camera system attached alongside the tools on the robotic arm that is inserted into the body of a patient. A surgeon carries out the operation by seeing through the camera's eye. As such, augmented reality systems have always seemed a good fit to overlay a virtual representation of the patient's innards, along with the full size and shape of the target area, on the display screen. However, the difficulty of AR object recognition inside the body has always proven too much of a hurdle. Until now.

Robotic Therapy offers Natural Rewiring
MIT have released details of their work with robotic physio therapy to help children suffering from the uncomfortable condition of cerebral palsy, and stroke victims, gain maximum control over their given physical body.

(08/02/2009)
(Press Release) Touch Bionics has released a the new version of its i-LIMB Skin prosthetic covering. With the new i-LIMB Skin, Touch Bionics has developed a synthetic covering that is a closer reflection of human skin function than has ever...

(24/09/2003)
Professor Kevin Warwick, leading proponent of cyborg existence, has started work on enabling computers to be controlled by pure thought. Some of his existing work includes controlling a robotic, or virtual limb via the power of thought ...

(16/10/2009)
A novel implant seeded with muscle cells could better integrate prosthetic limbs with the body, allowing amputees greater control over robotic appendages. The construct, developed at the University of Michigan, consists of tiny cups, made f...

(18/07/2013)
University of Leicester study shows insects can move without muscles using ‘clever biomechanical tricks’

Neurobiologists from the University of Leicester have shown that insect limbs can move without muscles – a finding that...

(24/07/2010)
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract for up to $34.5 million to The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., to manage the development and testing of the Modular Prost...