Mind-Controlled Robot Arm? For 1/4th the Price?

Prosthetic limbs have made incredible advances in the last twenty years. Ergonomics, new materials, and new technologies have combined to make athletes without human limbs better than those with, and to bring us limbs controlled by the mind.

One problem: the range of motion, especially in arms, can be limited, and installing these requires brain surgery. The whole process can be enormously expensive, to boot.

But maybe a lot less expensive, thanks to two undergraduates at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Michal Prywata and Thiago Caires saw the problem and tackled it with the Artificial Muscle Operated Arm, or AMOArm. It uses a headset to sense electrical impulses in the brain, which are wirelessly transmitted to a microprocessor. Compressed air is used to simulate the movement of muscles. If that sounds like common technology; it is. That’s what makes it so relatively inexpensive.

As far as installing it, you strap it on and put on the headset. That’s it. No surgery, no training, just strap the arm on and go.

To be fair, it’s still rough. Prywata and Caires are working on making each finger move independently, and giving the arm some sort of sense of touch. But for amputees that can’t afford $80,000 prosthetics, it’s already a god-send.