Building a Better Arm: An Amputee Helps Engineer His Own Future

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Though both DARPA projects come close to living up to the hype that surrounds them, they must become real products in order to help anyone. We need to push the arm that last mile to the consumer.

As I discovered the difference between the science fiction and the reality of prosthetic arms, I tried to come up with a solution. So some friends and I started the Open Prosthetics Project as an online clearinghouse for sharing arm designs. The project attacks the most obvious barrier to innovation by giving people a forum in which to share their ideas. We want users and technicians to improve and tweak the technologies they use instead of being stuck with whatever one-size-fits-most device they get (for example, there is a section on our website called “Pimp My Arm”). A technically inclined amputee or technician can download our computer-aided-design files, modify them, and send them to a machinist.

The best way to really move prosthetics research forward is to hitch a ride on a real market. If we can find an application for a myoelectric human interface in the $32 billion worldwide video-game market, for example, we can tap into a massive reserve of people who might not otherwise get involved in the effort.

Another possible application is robotics. Prosthetic arms aren’t the only devices that require centrally controlled powered joints. The compact and powerful motors designed for the APL project could be useful in bomb disposal, hazardous waste inspection, and home-service robotics, for example.

The greatest revolution of all may be apparent only after the frenzy of prosthetics research spending has evaporated. The design evolution for which DARPA is laying the groundwork could come from any quarter, inside or outside the prosthetics industry. And who knows—someone might even make money doing it.

Excerpted from IEEE Spectrum (March 2009), “a monthly magazine for technology innovators, business leaders, and the intellectually curious”; www.spectrum.ieee.org. © 2009 IEEE

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