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Researchers continue to investigate ways in which medical technology might one day provide people who are missing limbs with prosthetics that can be more accurately controlled and that provide some measure of sensory feedback. For now, however, developments are still in their very early stages.
The woman who can feel roughness or smoothness in her artificial hands for the first time in years; the child whose artificial leg lengthens as he grows; the previously armless man who can reach into a cabinet above his head to prepare dinner; machines that will some day register sensations in much the same way that people can -- thanks to research that will culminate this year in a major set of new designs, procedures and prototypes for artificial limbs, some of these miracles might eventually become commonplace, perhaps in another generation.
For now, a big payoff of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 project -- a multi-year push to develop new prosthetic limbs -- is a breathtaking set of advances in human-machine interfaces, control technology, and implantation techniques.
However, the most important advances of the program just might be the lessons learned and the infrastructure laid down in figuring out how to focus the skills of thousands of researchers -- working on everything from nerve chemistry to software
 engineering -- on one single goal: Build a working, lifelike arm that users can control to do everything from picking up a piece of paper to drinking a toast with a delicate crystal glass.
DARPA
 will soon have a set of 2009 prototypes fueled by years of research spanning chemistry, biology, computer science, cognition, engineering and physics. Dean Kamen, of Segway fame, has lumped some of this technology together into the optimistically named "Luke Arm," a reference to "Star Wars" character Luke Skywalker's artificial limb, which Kamen's company eventually wants to bring to market.
While most researchers say that a true production version of the "Luke Arm" is many years away, the advances fueled by the project are promising not only to revolutionize prosthetics, but to enhance medicine and electronics in many new ways. |
