The prosthetic hand’s camera instantaneously takes photographs of objects in front of it to assess their shape and size. The researchers — led by biomedical engineers at United Kingdom-based Newcastle University and funded by the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council — taught a neural network to recognize different type of grasps needed using photos of various objects.
Upon selecting the most appropriate grip, the neural network sends a signal to the prosthetic hand, so the user can pick up the object in one fluid motion.
“Responsiveness has been one of the main barriers to artificial limbs,” said Kianoush Nazarpour, PhD, senior lecturer in biomedical engineering at Newcastle. “Now, for the first time in a century, we have developed an ‘intuitive’ hand that can react without thinking.”
The researchers are working with Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to trial this new bionic hand to patients at the trust’s Freeman Hospital.
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