Our 2018 ambition: enabling an affordable, next-generation bionic hand.
Starting a publication on Medium to share and track our progress.
Bionic hands are high-tech prosthetic hands; a complex technological mixture of robotics and biomechanics that should work seamlessly with the human body. I believe the value of these devices to their users needs no explanation. However, like any product many improvements are still possible. One user we spoke to said the following about the professional products:
Current bionic hands and arms are extremely expensive, ranging between 15 to 70 thousand euro, while using technology of the past.
Some brave souls are attempting open source versions of bionic hands, using 3D printing and other technologies. Next to the costs, they still face many challenges in their designs. The most important aspects in long term user acceptance are:
- Functionality, including at least some basic grasps and gestures.
- Comfort, especially being light weight.
- Control, for example by moving the fingers with muscle signals.
- Cosmetics, users prefer to have human-like hands.
The project
Every year our employer allows a select group of talented engineers to start a two year Masterclass to learn about other technical disciplines and general business aspects. Since you learn best by doing, the Masterclass is finalized with a year long project: a kind of internal start-up.
We are in this final phase, where we can start a project of our own choosing. Instead of going solely for personal gains, we are highly motivated to give back to society. That’s why we choose the Bionic Hand project, applying cutting edge technology to help those unlucky enough to miss a bodypart.
Here on Medium I’d like to document our progress. To inspire, to find partners, to receive feedback and to reflect upon later.
Who are we, and what do we do?
So we are 6 engineers with 2 days a month of time, plus some of our sparetime, working with a shoestring budget to improve the world. To succeed we decided to focus on something feasible. Instead of aiming for a moonshot, we prefer to build a part of the rocket. So we take on a single function or module and integrate it with the whole system (the bionic hand). Currently, we have the following wishlist from our contacts:
- Independent finger control, that feels natural to the user,
- Force feedback to the user, to reach for objects out of sight,
- Waterproof system design, so it doesn’t get damaged,
- Longer time before having to charge the batteries,
- Lightweight design for user comfort,
- Just making the bionic hand much more affordable.
Given our own skills and strengths, we prefer to focus on improving the sensing and control side of problem, using non-invasive techniques such as electromyography (EMG). In the coming time we will be reaching out to possible partners and stakeholders, while researching our idea and the technology in parallel.
Our research and experience so far
Our first experience with a bionic hand user came from a talk at our company. There we met Arie, who is the user of an expensive bionic hand. He has already found a developer, Marco, to help him out developing affordable bionic hands. Check out his open source work so far at his website. Marco already worked with the Myo bracelet and some open source EMG hardware, but was not satisfied yet with the signal resolution for independent finger control. He’s currently focusing on the mechanical and manufacturing aspects of the bionic hand.
Both of them are collaborating with Yama Saraj, an enthousiastic entrepreneur who wants to develop bionic hands for developing nations. Unfortunately, a shocking number of people still lose limbs to land mines, and simply cannot afford anything to regain a decent quality of life. Yama is raising awareness and starting projects to enable affordable bionic hands and arms.
Dr. Smit’s free review article on 3D printed bionic hands has been very valuable so far in assessing the current state of academic and open source projects. This article provides an overview of over 60 projects related to bionic hands and is a good starting point for understanding the basic criteria for user acceptance.
We’re also started communicating with the organizers of My Human Kit, who aim for a well designed and scalable 1000 dollar Bionic Hand, with the same functionality as one that costs over 15000 dollar. Such initiatives are very impressive, and we hope to contribute. They currently work with the Myo bracelet, but an open source solution may be desirable.
