Excellent, picture-packed review of prosthetics

Not an academic review, but it you ever need a picture for a presentation, there are plenty to nab here.

Powerful Prosthetics: The Ultimate Integration of Design and Technology (WebUrbanist)

A week away

So, I underestimated the amount of work leading up to my prelim defense, and going to start my little break now-ish. It isn't the prelim work as much as the other stuff, like my little Thunderbird on a USB stick took forever to configure perfectly, and was then corrupted by an old version of TrueCrypt hiding on one of my computers. *poof* All that work disappeared. Ugh. Not sure how to handle that now, but might have to think up a little hack to make it work properly.

In the meantime, here are a few stories...

Serious:
60 Minutes covered DEKA on Sunday. Thank you to the 20-ish people that let me know about it, including my parents. They're silly. They still live in a world where missing a TV show means you have to wait for the rerun. Video clip is up on the 60 Minutes site.

This best computer interfaces story is a trip down memory lane.

Pravda has a very vague and almost not worth reading article on a Russian BCI group.

The Boston Globe discusses some of the hurdles of setting up an implantable BCI project, and chronicles the situation over at the now defunct Cyberkinetics. I don't want to say anything about the project that could anger one of the 14,000 government institutions regulating aspects of it (kidding on the number btw), so I will point to here (yes, the page is in a very very early alpha state).

And some sort of licensing setup for ECoG algorithms has been setup with a company called Neurolutions. (Really? Neurolutions? Have we gotten to the point where all the good brain related names are taken? Even DNI, which was a 3am, caffeine-induced hyper-mania induced naming beats the snot out of that.)

Seriously?:
I could bring myself to watch this clip, but here's the title:
"Robotic baby seal has healing powers" - CNN (also known as, "We fired out entire science department, but what could go wrong?" News)
Video clip. Be sure to get the tshirt, too.

Luke, I am your double blind, placebo controlled phase two investigational medical device trial funding officer

You probably already saw this, but I had to post it as well. The Deka Luke Arm is ready for phase II funding. This the rockin Dean Kamen arm. Also, the Hopkins APL Revolutionizing Prosthetics gets a second round of funding.

Also, no need to report these, but check out the related links on BoingBoing (below).

Direct Link. Link to tech diagram.

Here are the reports (note the update on Medgadget).
BoingBoing, Medgadget, Engadget, Slashdot

BCI like gandpa used to use

Yes, a wooden robotic arm that you can build! Now, if I had any ability to work with wood, I would be set. I did make a 6 foot circumference hovercraft in junior high school (yes, it worked), but gramps helped me big time.

B2B v2: Brain To Bot

The EU has been hearing the call of BCI, and upping the funding for non-invasive systems left and right. One project to make the news this last week is the Brain2Robot initiative at the Frauenhofer Institute and Charite hospital in Berlin. Not much too new to report here, just a new funding source for another collaboration, but worth noting, of course. The new arm to come out of the collaboration should be shown off... oh... today in Dusseldorf.

Kamen arm demoed

Engadget has a brief look at a rare DARPA arm demo. This is the Dean Kamen flavor of DARPA arms, and there's a nice little interview with footage below. No more fuzzy spy videos - everything is crystal clear. The arm is controlled by an exoskeleton type system on a staff member, and there is a little talk of the artificial skin. Sweet!

Couple Quickies

I have it on good authority (Time article) that Terri Schaivo had a DBS system implanted in a final attempt to get coherent responses from her.

Neurobot brought to my attention that PDP++ has been revived under the name Emergent Neural Network Simulator.

Some people collect coins, other...

And making the rounds on some of the social aggregator sites is this clip from, I think, the Schwartz lab. Old, but nice to see. As with any YouTube clip, don't read the comments or you will become dumber.

Learning biology? This video is quickly becoming a classic (see if you can name the organelles and processes occurring in each scene). Another nice site JD pointed out is Anatomy Travelogue.

Eat this DARPA

Sure, it isn't human scale, but who do you think will win in an arm wrestling match between this and the Dean Kamen arm? Finally! Something to get back at that arm wrestling game that was recalled for snapping limbs (reported last week).

via Engadget

The arms race

Arms arms arms. So many arms. German company Festo has their muscle emulating arm, called Airic's_Arm. Click through for some fluidic muscle awesomeness. Note that there are a significant number of components in the torso piece, making this a little way off for use as a prosthetic.

Best Slashdot comment on the story:

Now the Japanese must develop the next version of their robot arm so it can beat this one.

The arms race begins!

via Slashdot.

Recycling robotics

One thing about BCI I've come to realize over the last year: The same news is rehashed over and over in the media. Many time there is no major advancement tied to the announcements, but companies and funding agencies love to see their work in the limelight. One positive aspect of this is that the labs show off more interesting material, as the basics have been previously covered.

Case in point, the Vanderbilt/Rocket powered/Goldfarb/DARPA/liquid nitrogen (or was it hydrogen) arm. Still cool as Hell, but now we get to see the funky video above. At some point I'm going to sit down and list out all the big players and their aliases (the Dean Kamen are is also a 'DARPA arm').
Covered here, here, here, and here.

DARPA arm

I'll post more on this later (post prelim), but Wired has a nice overview of the DARPA arm project. They make mention of the Deam Kamen arm as well, and that the current control mechanism for both is myoelectric (EMG pads recording rerouted, off site, or residual muscle movement).

I just thought I'd mention that the reasons many of my posts are relate to robotic prostheses are that:
1) They make for good media, so they get plenty of coverage
2) They represent something of a parallel but separate line from what I do (decoding = neuroscience, prosthesis = engineering)
3) Aside from implantable stimulation systems, artificial prosthetics are the Mecca of neuroprosthesis. Cursor movement is great, but it doesn't tie your shoe. Additionally, they provide the possibility of extending the human body. In Sci-Fi Fantasy Future Land, there is always the possibility of having more than two arms (you laugh, but there's no evidence that this would not be possible!)

Shadowboxing skills +10

Yet another robotic hand/forearm. 1:1 mapping to human movement, compressed air powered, 40 expanding and contracting 'muscles', and 24 pre-defined movements (I assume this repertoire can be expanded).

From Gizmodo

Nicolelis video

For those of you who haven't had a chance to see the inner sanctum of a BCI lab, here is a little video about Nicolelis' most famous experiment, complete with cheesy sound effects and British narrator. Even if you've read about it, there's something about watching the footage that adds to the experience.

Robot arm on the cheap

Caught by the folks at TechEBlog.



This little ditty uses a variable resistor to infer the position of the arm, and sends the info to a bunch of servos. Sure it looks like anything heavier than a dime would cause it to collapse, but what a fun little weekend project that would make. I could think of a million non-BCI uses for something like this. For instance, if you happen to be in some sort of Feng Shui decorating, pepper the tree branches outside with these potentiometers, and tie them to ceiling mounted fake or artistic renderings of tree limbs. This would look great in a house with lots of windows because every time the wind blows outside, the internal fixtures would mimic the direction and magnitude. I so need to patent that. Guess who watched too much HGTV this week?

Dean Kamen arm update

About two-three months ago, footage leaked of the prosthetic arm that Segway creator Dean Kamen was designing. It was shaky cameraphone footage without any audio. Well, looky here! We got some annotation from the man himself. Key bits:
- skin designed that looks as good natural skin
- the arm weighs 9 lbs
- fits into the 50% range for female body frames (50% of females have arms this size - I assume the structure can be expanded for men)
- 14 degrees of freedom
- titanium
- demoed with an exoskeleton control, ultimate goal is to provide haptic feedback as well.

I am particularly impressed by the fluidity of the movements, like when he begins to reach for the pad of paper.