Robotics and Prosthetics Technologies Combine to Produce Astonishingly Natural Movement

An athlete competes on October 26, 2024 in the annual Cybathlon meet. A leg and foot prosthetic allows him to navigate back and forth between different boxes while balancing a teacup. Robotics and prosthetics are advancing in tandem to restore natural human motion. Image: Cybathlon

By James Myers

Major advancements in technologies that restore impaired bodily functions are giving people new hope for significantly improved quality of life. We will review some of the most promising applications now under development.

Dr. Connor Glass is founder of Phantom Neuro. Image: Phantom Neuro

Phantom Neuro, a company based in Texas, is developing a thin, flexible sensor for implantation that would provide amputees with more precise and natural control over prosthetic limbs.

As the company explains, “The implant is designed to sit on top of the muscles where it can detect electrical activity from nerves. The sensor is able to pick up that electrical activity and correlate it to the intended movements in the prosthetic limb.” Requiring only a small incision in the skin, the process entails much less risk to a patient than a brain implant.

Implantation of a computer interface in the brain is the approach used by companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink to enable operation of devices by thought control. In August, Neuralink reported that it had successfully implanted its device in a second quadriplegic person, and in November the company announced on Elon Musk’s X that it is planning to test the ability of its brain implant to operate a robotic arm by thought alone.

“Not many people use robotic limbs, and that’s largely due to how horrible the control system is,” Dr. Connor Glass, CEO and founder of Phantom Neuro, told Wired Magazine. The company supplied Wired with test results from ten participants using wearable versions of the sensor that demonstrated 93.8% accuracy in eleven hand and wrist gestures. The wearable device requires frequent calibration and shifts during movement, problems that are expected to be overcome with implantation, after further testing to prove its safety.

Water-powered artificial muscles show promise for fine motor control.

Artificial muscles that mimic the precision and range of control of human muscles is another technology being explored to improve prosthetic limbs. If installed in a robot, artificial muscles might give the machine the capability of performing, under the remote control of a doctor, a task like surgery that requires extreme accuracy.

Screenshot from Clone Robotics.

Artificial muscles would replace motors now commonly employed in each joint of a robot, providing smoother operation with greater flexibility while reducing weight and bulk.

A company called Clone Robotics, based in New York, uses water pressure to open and close valves in a matrix structure that operates its artificial muscles. The company has created a robotic hand with an almost natural degree of flexibility, as well as a humanoid torso whose muscles are flexible enough for simultaneous and coordinated control of both arms.

The company’s website invites the public to “reserve one of the first 279 clones ever made,” as it prepares to release its finely-muscled human-shaped android to the market. The company says it will deliver a machine able to memorize the clean layout of your home for vacuuming and cleaning, the contents of your kitchen so it can make you a sandwich and unload the dishwasher, shake hands with and make drinks for guests, do your laundry, and perform a host of other tasks that you may want to train it for. In addition, as Clone Robotics’ website states, your android servant will be “capable of witty dialogue.”

As prosthetics become increasingly functional and adaptive, physical impairments are no longer holding back athletic pursuits.

Created in 2013, the Cybathlon is a non-profit venture of ETH Zurich, a Swiss university, that brings together teams from around the globe for competitions of athletics and technology. Each team consists of a person with disabilities and technology developers from universities, companies, and non-governmental organizations. Working together, they develop and demonstrate assistive technologies for everyday use with and for people with disabilities.

The most recent competition, held in October 2024 in an arena near Zurich, included eight different competitions. Two new events were added to the previous six; one was a race with smart visual assistance technologies for people with severe visual impairment, and the other was a race with assistance robots for people with severe impairment of the upper and lower extremities.

An athlete prepares for the 2024 Cybathlon exoskeleton race. Image: Cybathlon

The October 2024 edition of Cybathlon attracted 67 international teams of persons with disabilities, academics, and industry participants.

In its three meets, beginning in 2016, 100 teams from over 30 nations have participated. The 2024 competition was designed to “include more uncertainty and variability in most disciplines. This will require improved dynamic control, increased functional flexibility of the devices and more ad-hoc selection of the problem-solving strategy by the pilots,” according to Cybathlon’s website.

By fostering cooperation between technology developers and human users with the incentive of competition, initiatives like Cybathon are helping to combine the best technologies and creative minds behind robotics and prosthetics in a way that is rapidly propelling advancements in both.

The results of the increasingly close relationship between the two technological fields are clear to see, in the life-like limbs that are restoring natural movement and overcoming physical disabilities. Improving the quality of life for many, it’s a compelling example of how scientific co-operation and ingenuity can produce some incredible benefits and brighten the future of human lives.

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