In something that sounds like it comes from Star Wars or Star Trek a paralyzed man was able to control a robotic arm using only his mind.
In a moment of high emotion Tim Hemmes, 30, who is quadriplegic following a motorcycle accident, was able to reach out and move the robotic arm next to his wheel chair using only his thoughts.
“It wasn’t my arm but it was my brain, my thoughts. I was moving something …. I don’t have one single word to give you what I felt at that moment. That word doesn’t exist.”
The research is some way away from becoming commercially viable, but the very possibility, something almost unconsidered a few decades ago, is now moving forwards under a variety of different methods and techniques.
At Duke University monkeys were trained to feed themselves using thought powered virtual arms they could see on a computer screen and a project called Braingate has allowed quite a few paralyzed people to work computers or make simple movements with prosthetic arms using only thought control.
Speech recognition never really took off due to the lack of privacy and the slightly mad feeling of talking to your computer or phone, but the days of keyboard and mouse are clearly numbered once we start to gain direct mind control of computers. The quality of life of disabled individuals is likely to improve dramatically and bionic limbs start to look less like science fiction.
The question that scientists are starting to ask, is whether these robotic limbs or what might be called neuroprosthetics, can ever offer the kind of rapid and precise movement of our own limbs. Is the dream of Luke Skywalker’s robotic arm, that functions absolutely seamlessly with the rest of his body going to become a reality ? Michael McLoughlin of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which developed the humanlike arm in a $100 million project for DARPA, the Pentagon’s research agency says :
“We really are at a tipping point now
with this technology,”
The Pittsburgh research team is pushing forwards with the government funded study to test the limits of the robotic arms capabilities. The arm that Tim Hermmes tested, was under observation by the food and drug administration who allowed the chip to remain implanted in his brain for an entire month, in a test that sought solutions to full three dimensional movement.
Hermmes surprised researchers on the very last day, whizzing the arm into action to touch hands with scientists and then the coup de grace as he high-fived his girlfriend in front of an excited audience. Its these kinds of moments that have inspired scientists to push ahead and they are now recruiting new volunteers.
When you think back to the humble beginnings of the motor car in the late 1800s or the PC in the late 1970s compared with what we have today, logically one could assume the same is going to happen with robotics and neuroscience.
Dr. Michael Boninger, rehabilitation chief at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center offered his expert scientific opinion :
“It was awesome ….. To interact with a human that way. …
This is the beginning.”
Hemmes said that learning to move the DARPA arm was like learning to drive a car with a manual transmission. It took some practice, but by the end of the month he was moving the arm sideways as well as back and forth.
Rupert Shepherd B.Sc.