Soft robotic prosthetic uses nerve signals for more natural control

Recent advances in technology They have revolutionized the world of assistance tools and doctors, and prostheses are no exception.

We have traveled a long way from the rigid and purely cosmetic prostheses of the past. Today, we are seeing the emergence of softest and most realistic designs, many that incorporate robotic components that significantly expand their functionality.

Despite these exciting developments, it is still an important challenge: how do we make these robotic limbs easier and more intuitive to users who control them?

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The control problem: a barrier to use the real world

Think about it: a highly advanced prosthetic hand is as good as the user’s ability to control it. If the control system is clumsy or difficult to learn, it limits the effectiveness of the prosthesis and, ultimately, affects the user’s quality of life. Most of the commercially available people Robotic limbs He still fights with this problem.

The soft robotic bracelet provides users of the prosthetic control of natural control control

An advance of Iit and Imperial College London

Now, Researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology (Iit) and Imperial College London have presented a promising solution: a new soft prosthetic hand designed for more intuitive control. His work, published in Science Robotics, presents a novel control approach that combines the natural coordination patterns of our fingers with the decoding of the Motoneuron activity in the spine.

New prostheses restore natural movement through nerve connection

Decoding the natural movements of the body

So how does it work? We are going to break it down. When we perform daily tasks, our fingers move in coordinated patterns called “postural synergies”. These synergies are fundamental for how we understand and manipulate objects. The team, led by Antonio Bicchi and Dario Farina, developed a method that integrates these postural synergies with the analysis of electrical signals of the nervous system. By decoding the activity of spinal motorcycle (nerve cells that control muscle movement), the movements of the hand that a user intends to do can predict. This information is used to control the prosthetic hand.

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Soft materials, smart design

The hand itself is an impressive feat of engineering, which combines soft skin materials, tendons and ligaments with rigid materials for “bones.” According to Bicchi, the artificial bones “roll one on top of each other, instead of turning as robot hands they usually do it.” This, together with the tendon disposition, allows the hand to adapt to the shape of the objects, imitating the behavior of natural and intelligent grip of a human hand. One of the most exciting characteristics of this new prosthetic hand is its ability to manage in hand. This means that users can not only understand an object, but also adjust their grip and move the object inside their hand, imagine being able to open a bottle of water using only your prosthetic hand.

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Promising results in initial trials

The researchers tested their creation with participants without disabilities and individuals with prosthetic needs. The results were encouraging, showing that the hand allowed users to make complex movements and manipulate objects with greater precision and naturalness compared to other prosthetic hands. The tests showed that combined and postural neuronal synergies allowed precise and natural control of coordinated multidigite actions, achieving more than 90% of the continuous mechanical collector, and the objective rate objective for specific hands postures was greater with neural synergies compared to muscle systems.

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The future of prostheses looks softer and more intelligent

This innovative soft prosthetic hand represents a significant step forward in the field. The control approach and the design principles developed by the IIT team and the Imperial College in London could pave the way for the most advanced prostheses in the future. While more refinements and clinical trials are needed, this technology has great potential to improve the lives of people with limb loss.

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Kurt’s Key Takeways

This research highlights the importance of imitating the natural mechanisms of the body when designing prostheses. By combining soft robotics with advanced neural decoding, scientists are creating prosthetic limbs that are not only functional but also intuitive and natural to use. This could really revolutionize the field and train users to recover lost skills and improve their quality of life.

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