Brain-controlled artificial limbs Dr. Justin Sanchez, a program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, describes how applied neuroscience is opening new worlds of independence and experience, as well as important questions about privacy, enhancement and the core societal value of personal autonomy. He spoke at DARPA’s “Wait, What? A Future Technology Forum” on Sept. 11, 2015. Have a look on this article here if you want a complete story. For now it is incredible but these prosthetic limbs have still big problems to solve: Cost “Right now we make these arms one at a time, which makes them very expensive,” he says. No kidding: Each custom-built prototype costs about $400,000 to build. Even with mass production and degrade the dexterity of the limb it will cost around 100 000 USD. Brain & movement signals Scientists don’t know how it works. They know some stuff but not enough. They created algorithms and it learn to correctly interpret a user’s intentions for basic tasks. For complex tasks you need higher-bandwidth communications between brain and interface (meaning more surgery and more channels of info) Miniaturization For now brain-machine interface is too heavy. They need to hide everything (Battery, computer to analyse in Real time the movement signals and a full speed wireless link between brain and limb) But Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab (APL) is working hard to find a way to commercialize it and solve all these problems.
