Saturday, December 8, 2007

JHU's Bionic Arm

Quote from previous post:
"Next thing we know, the robot can play fantasie impromptu."

I've totally forgotten about an article(PopSci) on a bionic arm that I came across a couple weeks ago. Really cool, the thing has 25 joints, (FTA) nimble enough to play the piano. A normal arm has 30 joint motions, this is only short of 5 more, double yay! Proto 2, as it is called, was developed by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. It uses myoelectric sensors to move the arm. From what I gather, myoelectric signals are are electrical signals that allow us humans to control our muscles. (n00b here, correct me if I'm wrong.)

Getting this 25 joints onto a robot and controlling them probably wouldn't be much of a big problem, afterall the robot doesn't need to worry whether the arm will be able to synchronize with its muscles, since it has none to begin with. Now that there's the mechanics available, it's only a matter of time before somebody writes the software needed for a robot equipped with this arms mechanics to pay fantasie impromptu. Ouch! I think I'll go and practise my piano when I'm done with this post.

My heart skips a beat everytime I read/hear about advances in bionics and robotics. I don't know, these things totally captivate me.

These are the other websites I read from:

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