10 ms·

DARPA's Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm Could Be on the Market in Four Years

64 points by raphar 16y ago

RyanMcGreal 16y ago
Cue the Dr. Strangelove jokes.
- evo_9 16y ago
  More like the Six Million Dollar Man theme...
  - RyanMcGreal 16y ago
    Watch the arm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59YKlP--PhU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59YKlP--PhU
blhack 16y ago
This looks like the DEKA arm. Here is Dean Kamen talking about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoY1cItRiHA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoY1cItRiHA Even if it isn't the same thing, this is a pretty interesting video.
- sp332 16y ago
  I worked at DEKA for a while. Although I didn't work on the Luke arm, I got to see a few demos. It's my understanding that the control system is very loosely coupled to the user inputs. I think it's an expansion of the control mechanism for the iBot, which took input from hundreds of sensors but could be controlled with just a joystick and a single button. The Luke arm currently is controlled by pressure sensors in the shoes and on the chest, so you wiggle your toes and flex your muscles to command the arm. It also has very impressive force feedback. But other input mechanisms and feedback systems could be implemented, including direct mental manipulation. Edit: here's a good demo video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4X_l2XOz8g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4X_l2XOz8g
zoomzoom 16y ago
If this turns out to be a real FDA approved implant, the potential to improve the lives of paralyzed people is staggering.
arrel 16y ago
Did Arnold Schwarzenegger's face flash through anyone else's mind while reading this?
frisco 16y ago
So I totally want this to actually happen. However, they gloss over all of the actually hard parts. Cool, DEKA's built a sweet anthropomorphic robotic arm. I have no doubt that part works. But you don't just jump to running a human study from that: first, you do it in non-human primates and show that they can effective control the arm with the implant. Then you show that they can interpret feedback from the arm stimulated into their brain. Then you show that the implant is stable and immunologically accepted over a long period of time (warning: deep, hard unsolved problem). Then you show that they continuously integrate it into their body representation (not necessarily hinted by the prior control study). Then you cautiously do a human surgery and see if they can control it, and the brain doesn't reject the implant after a year. Then five patients. Then apply for FDA approval, expedited or otherwise. AFAIK there's never been an implant study done using the Luke arm. Therefore we've never tried to build control models from cortical activity for it. That's a hard problem in and of itself. Jumping straight to a 5-person human study is insane. Furthermore, the idea that human patients are going to get intracortical feedback from the arm is crazytalk. It's just not happening. Electrical stimulation cooks the brain and causes seizures, and optical stimulation requires gene therapy (!) and has all kinds of long-term problems right now. TL;DR: awesome I hope it works. They'll bring a needed device to market and solve about 10-15 of the hard problems of brain-machine interfacing for us at the same time!
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- nooneelse 16y ago
  Indeed. I have no idea why they would want to include solving the "don't cook the neurons" problem in their road-map to a usable product; there are other feedback methods available. A haptic display of some flavor would certainly be plenty to close the loop in controlling the important variables like "are any of the motors encountering resistance" and "how much pressure am I putting on this thing I'm squeezing in my robot hand." A more advanced haptic display should allow enough feedback signals to hold much more than that. Heck, if one is going to go electrically stimulating neurons, better to do that to sensory neurons in the user's skin than in their skull.
- 16y ago
ck2 16y ago
Sigh, why does this have to come out of the military industrial machine? Little known fact: over 1,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have lost a limb (out of 41,000 wounded that survived because of more advanced medicine). I hope they don't use this development to justify that it's okay because we certainly don't talk about it much otherwise.
- RyanHolliday 16y ago
  Isn't it possible that this is why it comes out of the military industrial machine? Surely a lot of advances in trauma treatment, bandages, surgery, and all kinds of other medical advances have come from the military industrial machine as well. I don't see the need to politicize this, and I don't think the numbers associated with the wars would be little known to people here.
  - jokermatt999 16y ago
    Indeed. If you watch Dean Kamen's TED Talk, he says that's part of why he created it. It's not to justify sending soldiers to lose their limbs, it's to help those that already have. He showed a lot of respect and ...sadness, I guess for the soldiers who had lost their limbs, and genuinely seemed to want to help.
- endtime 16y ago
  Why does it matter where this comes from? It's great technology that will improve people's lives.
- droz 16y ago
  Historically speaking, the majority of innovations take place as a consequence of war. Advancements in aircraft, electronics and industrial processes, medicine are all prime examples. Read up on the technological breakthroughs that were expedited by world war II that might have other otherwise not taken place. Think about the mass production of penicillin and skin grafts. Necessity breeds innovation.
Niten 16y ago
> Finally, laypeople will benefit from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) mad scientist projects Yeah, because that whole Internet thing and GPS didn't really count for much...
StavrosK 16y ago
At first, I thought that it would be very cool to have such an arm, for a second entertaining the thought of someone chopping their arm off just so they could be a cyborg. However, a moment later, I thought "three arms", and immediately I saw the improvement. I bet some rich guy will soon turn into some robo-Shiva.

64 points by raphar 16y ago

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

Cue the Dr. Strangelove jokes.

evo_9 16y ago
More like the Six Million Dollar Man theme...
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago
  Watch the arm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59YKlP--PhU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59YKlP--PhU

blhack 16y ago

This looks like the DEKA arm. Here is Dean Kamen talking about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoY1cItRiHA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoY1cItRiHA Even if it isn't the same thing, this is a pretty interesting video.

sp332 16y ago
I worked at DEKA for a while. Although I didn't work on the Luke arm, I got to see a few demos. It's my understanding that the control system is very loosely coupled to the user inputs. I think it's an expansion of the control mechanism for the iBot, which took input from hundreds of sensors but could be controlled with just a joystick and a single button. The Luke arm currently is controlled by pressure sensors in the shoes and on the chest, so you wiggle your toes and flex your muscles to command the arm. It also has very impressive force feedback. But other input mechanisms and feedback systems could be implemented, including direct mental manipulation. Edit: here's a good demo video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4X_l2XOz8g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4X_l2XOz8g

zoomzoom 16y ago

If this turns out to be a real FDA approved implant, the potential to improve the lives of paralyzed people is staggering.

arrel 16y ago

Did Arnold Schwarzenegger's face flash through anyone else's mind while reading this?

frisco 16y ago

So I totally want this to actually happen. However, they gloss over all of the actually hard parts. Cool, DEKA's built a sweet anthropomorphic robotic arm. I have no doubt that part works. But you don't just jump to running a human study from that: first, you do it in non-human primates and show that they can effective control the arm with the implant. Then you show that they can interpret feedback from the arm stimulated into their brain. Then you show that the implant is stable and immunologically accepted over a long period of time (warning: deep, hard unsolved problem). Then you show that they continuously integrate it into their body representation (not necessarily hinted by the prior control study). Then you cautiously do a human surgery and see if they can control it, and the brain doesn't reject the implant after a year. Then five patients. Then apply for FDA approval, expedited or otherwise. AFAIK there's never been an implant study done using the Luke arm. Therefore we've never tried to build control models from cortical activity for it. That's a hard problem in and of itself. Jumping straight to a 5-person human study is insane. Furthermore, the idea that human patients are going to get intracortical feedback from the arm is crazytalk. It's just not happening. Electrical stimulation cooks the brain and causes seizures, and optical stimulation requires gene therapy (!) and has all kinds of long-term problems right now. TL;DR: awesome I hope it works. They'll bring a needed device to market and solve about 10-15 of the hard problems of brain-machine interfacing for us at the same time!

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
nooneelse 16y ago
Indeed. I have no idea why they would want to include solving the "don't cook the neurons" problem in their road-map to a usable product; there are other feedback methods available. A haptic display of some flavor would certainly be plenty to close the loop in controlling the important variables like "are any of the motors encountering resistance" and "how much pressure am I putting on this thing I'm squeezing in my robot hand." A more advanced haptic display should allow enough feedback signals to hold much more than that. Heck, if one is going to go electrically stimulating neurons, better to do that to sensory neurons in the user's skin than in their skull.
16y ago

ck2 16y ago

Sigh, why does this have to come out of the military industrial machine? Little known fact: over 1,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have lost a limb (out of 41,000 wounded that survived because of more advanced medicine). I hope they don't use this development to justify that it's okay because we certainly don't talk about it much otherwise.

RyanHolliday 16y ago
Isn't it possible that this is why it comes out of the military industrial machine? Surely a lot of advances in trauma treatment, bandages, surgery, and all kinds of other medical advances have come from the military industrial machine as well. I don't see the need to politicize this, and I don't think the numbers associated with the wars would be little known to people here.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  Indeed. If you watch Dean Kamen's TED Talk, he says that's part of why he created it. It's not to justify sending soldiers to lose their limbs, it's to help those that already have. He showed a lot of respect and ...sadness, I guess for the soldiers who had lost their limbs, and genuinely seemed to want to help.
endtime 16y ago
Why does it matter where this comes from? It's great technology that will improve people's lives.
droz 16y ago
Historically speaking, the majority of innovations take place as a consequence of war. Advancements in aircraft, electronics and industrial processes, medicine are all prime examples. Read up on the technological breakthroughs that were expedited by world war II that might have other otherwise not taken place. Think about the mass production of penicillin and skin grafts. Necessity breeds innovation.

Niten 16y ago

> Finally, laypeople will benefit from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) mad scientist projects Yeah, because that whole Internet thing and GPS didn't really count for much...

StavrosK 16y ago

At first, I thought that it would be very cool to have such an arm, for a second entertaining the thought of someone chopping their arm off just so they could be a cyborg. However, a moment later, I thought "three arms", and immediately I saw the improvement. I bet some rich guy will soon turn into some robo-Shiva.