Undergraduate Engineers Develop Brain-Controlled Prosthetic Arm

A couple of undergraduate biomedical engineers from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, have developed a brain-controlled prosthetic arm. While their robotic arm certainly isn’t the world’s first or the most technologically-advanced prosthetic, it could very well be the safest and least expensive. That’s because unlike traditional prosthetic limbs, which contain sophisticated electronic and mechanical components, the Artificial Muscle-Operated (AMO) arm is made primarily of simple pneumatic pumps and valves and a tank of compressed air to create movement. This has allowed the prosthetic to be developed at just one-quarter of the cost of a traditional prosthetic limb.
Moreover, most prosthetic limbs controlled by neural signals require an invasive and expensive re-innervation surgery to re-route major nerves, followed by weeks of training. The AMO arm uses brain signals measured with a head-worn device (EEG, we presume) connected to a computer that controls the arm’s pneumatic system.
You may be wondering if this budget robotic arm can match the performance of the more expensive and intricately designed competitors. According to Michal Prywata, one of the inventors, it only takes ten minutes to master the basic functioning of the arm. Also, the pneumatic nature of the AMO allows for a greater range of movement than other prosthetic arms. Finally, AMO arm technology has a number of potential applications, such as wheelchair devices and military robotics, and research efforts are already underway to implement improvements such as independent finger movements and enabling the arm to sense what kind of material it is holding.
Article from Ryerson University: Ryerson students invent breakthrough brain-controlled prosthetic arm…