For many years, I have been interested in robotics. More accurately, in what robotics can do for the betterment of humanity.
This is a photo of my Aunt, who would like to keep her name out of this:
Photo courtesy of Karen Du Toit.
My Aunt was attacked by a dog. A struggle that ended with the dogs passing, and the loss of her right arm. This changed both her life, and the life of her family forever.
I bring this up purely because this was the spark that lit the fire of interest in prosthetics. Prosthetics have advanced drastically over the years, from hooks and wooden pegs to articulating fingers controlled directly by the brain.
Photo by the BBC.
Photo by Hortons orthotics and prosthetics.
Video sourced from Pexels.com.
It's important to note that prosthetic arms and prosthetic legs are vastly different in their sophistication and development. This is a result of the much higher demand for prosthetic legs. Unfortunately, with many agencies thinking of profit over impact, the upper limb prosthetic market has been left with no choice but to use outdated, homemade or extremely expensive solutions. That is, until recently.
Today I'd like to draw your attention to the most lifelike prosthetic I've found thus far. I found this group on YouTube. The channel name; simply, "Clone". This small group is taking a different approach to the engineering of the hands to other prosthetics developers. What I find strange is that they don't seem to be trying to make prosthetics, but androids. This is irrelevant to this blog as I am simply looking at the advancement in the fluidity and realism of the hands movements. This is due to the fact that despite their goal being an android, their technology can be utilised in other applications.
So how have they decided to tackle the issue of organic movement, compared to other researchers. Well, where most researchers opt for servos and motors to articulate their arms and fingers, the Clone team decided to use hydraulics. More specifically, they chose to mimic the muscular structure of a human arm using what is commonly referred to as "McKibben hydraulic/pneumatic muscles".
Here is a video by XYZAidan detailing artificial hydraulic muscles:
Now you might be wondering, why don't more people use artificial muscles in their prosthetic builds. It's simple. First, these systems require tanks of hydraulic fluid in order to run, which is no problem for a robot, but a human wouldn't want to wear a massive tank on their back. Second, Hydraulic systems are loud, and third, these artificial muscles lack the same range of movement as organic muscles. This last issue has been the main reason for the lack of interest in hydraulic muscles, as the other issues can be solved or avoided. This brings me to the brilliance of the team at Clone. I do not know exactly how they have managed to overcome the limited movement of hydraulic musculature, but I presume they have utilised a form of mechanical advantage and have manipulated some ratios to equate minimal movement in the muscles to a high degree of movement in the fingers.
Here is a short video from their channel, so you can witness first hand how real the hand moves:
Please go ahead and give this channel some support.
Thank you.
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