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EC Funds Projects that Push Bionic Hand ResearchThe European Commission (EC) is currently funding three research
projects that could lead to major innovations in the design and
function of prosthetic hands.
NanoBioTact
The objective of the NanoBioTact (nano-engineering biomimetic
tactile sensors) project is to develop an articulated "bionic
finger" with a sense of touch. The finger, which is being developed
by Unilever Corporation, West Sussex, England, is covered with
thousands of tiny tactile sensors that will lead into a vibrating
haptic feedback system. Each sensor is less than a millimeter wide,
and together the sensors make up a matrix that is designed to
detect shape, vibration, and other surface information.
Simon Watson, PhD, who is leading the project, told the United
Kingdom's Evening Standard, "We want to develop a machine
with a sense of touch. This brings us closer to the prospect of
prosthetic hands that can provide the same sort of sensory feedback
as the natural senses.
"One application is robotic devices for use by surgeons, where
the surgeon receives feedback from an instrument on what it is
feeling, via gloves."
According to Unilever researchers, the first working prototypes
could be available within 18 months.
SafeHand
The SafeHand project, which is being led by Italian researcher
Maria Chiara Carrozza, of Rome's Università Campus Bio-Medico,
aims to develop a cybernetic prosthetic hand with exceptional
feedback to the wearer. According to the project's engineering
partner, the ARTS Lab at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy, the
hand would "be felt by an amputee as the lost natural limb,
delivering a natural sensory feedback by means of the stimulation
of some specific afferent nerves" and "be controlled in a natural
way by processing the efferent neural signals coming from the
central nervous system...."
SmartHand
The SmartHand project, the work of an international team hailing
from universities in Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, and
Sweden, aims to "develop an intelligent artificial hand that looks
and feels like a real hand." The ARTS Lab describes the potential
end product as "a dextrous robotic hand endowed with 16 degrees of
freedom and able to flex/extend each finger independently and to
oppose the thumb to different finger tips for providing different
hand shapes and grasps adaptive to objects to be grasped and
manipulated." The hand will be as complex on the outside as on the
inside: its skin will contain sensors that give feedback about
multiple factors, including whether an object in the hand's grasp
is slipping away from it.
While no definitive production date was listed for the projects,
all will be funded by the EC through 2009. 
Table Of Contents - October 2008
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