CANADA's NeuroArm: Robotic Arm Provides Healing Touch

The delicate touch that successfully removed an egg-shaped tumor from Paige Nickason's brain got a helping hand from a world-renowned arm -- a robotic arm, that is.

The technology that went into developing neuroArm, the world's first robot capable of performing surgery inside magnetic resonance machines, was born from the Canadarm (developed by MDA for the US Space Shuttle Program), as well as Canadarm2 and Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency's family of space robots performing the heavy-lifting and maintenance on board the International Space Station.

neuroArm began with the search for a solution to a surgical dilemma: how to make difficult surgeries easier or impossible surgeries possible. MDA worked with a team led by Dr. Garnette Sutherland at the University of Calgary to develop a highly precise robotic arm that works in conjunction with the advanced imaging capabilities of MRI systems.

Surgeons needed to be able to perform surgeries while a patient was inside a magnetic resonance (MRI) machine, which meant designing a robot that was as dexterous as the human hand but even more precise and tremor-free.

Operating inside the MRI also means it had to be entirely made from non-magnetic materials (for instance, no steel) so that it would not be affected by the MRI's magnetic field or adversely affect the MRI's images.

The project team developed novel ways to control the robot's movements and give the robot's operator a sense of touch, both essential so that the surgeon can precisely control the robot and can feel what is happening during the surgery.

Since Paige Nickason's surgery in 2008, neuroArm has been used to successfully treat dozens more patients. The neuroArm technology has since been purchased by IMRIS Inc. a private publicly traded medical device manufacturer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

MDA and IMRIS are advancing the design to commercialise a two-armed version of the system to allow surgeons to see detailed three-dimensional images of the brain, as well as surgical tools and hand controllers that allow the surgeon to feel tissue and apply pressure when they operate.

A clinical trial led by Dr. Sutherland is currently underway at Calgary's Foothills hospital using the first generation of the robot on a group of 120 patients. IMRIS anticipates being in a position to seek regulatory approval for the robot as early as 2012.

Designing a cheaper, simpler prosthetic arm

Here’s a video detailing the concept of the new prosthetic arm design. (It features Adam Booher, IPT’s director of product development, and a member of a team of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign graduates who lead the company)

Most prosthetic arms are custom-made and cost thousands of dollars. But an Illinois-based non-profit, Illini Prosthetic Technologies (IPT), has come up with a much more affordable, pre-made alternative.

It’s operated by simple physical actions to control mechanical hooks that mimic a human hand.

The Open Socket prosthetic arm, as it’s called, is designed primarily for audiences in the developing world, which accounts for 80% of the globe’s 25 million amputees.

It costs a mere $100 dollars, comes in various sizes, and has steadily been gathering awards in recent months.

In August, one of IPT’s founders, Jonathan Naber, won a $10,000 Simon Fellowship for Noble Purpose from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Also in August, the company was named “Inventor of the Month” by software maker Autodesk.

And on November 8, the Open Socket design tied for second place honors in the competition for the 2011 James Dyson Award, a prestigious international design prize. The company has also received funding from the Clinton Global Initiative; Naber won a $30,000 Lemelson MIT-Illinois Student Prize for the prosthetic arm concept in 2010.

An amputee in Illinois lifts a table using a prototype of the Open Socket arm

IPT says their concept is inspired by the evolution of shoe- making from bespoke design businesses to mass-market manufacturing. 

The goal, of course, is to drive down the cost for resource-challenged amputees. So far, IPT has conducted user testing at Northwestern University in Illinois and in Zacapa, Guatemala. The company is currently working to bring the prosthetics to market.

Prosthetic Limb With An Embedded Smartphone Dock Built In

Trevor Prideaux was having trouble texting. Prideaux, who was born without his left forearm, used to have to balance his smartphone on his prosthetic arm or lay it on a flat surface to text, dial, or otherwise take advantage of the technology.


So with some help form the Exeter Mobility Center in Devon, UK, the 50-year-old Prideaux has become the first person to have a smartphone dock embedded in his prosthetic limb.

With some design help from Nokia and the prosthetics team at EMC, Prideaux’s Nokia C7 is now fixed within his prosthetic forearm (he went to Apple first hoping to mount an iPhone, but Cupertino declined to participate in his project).


He can now easily text by using his one hand, or field calls either by putting his prosthetic forearm up to his ear or by using speakerphone, leaving his biological limb free.

The very idea of it gets the idea mill churning. Right now, the prosthesis is a prosthesis and the phone is simply a phone, but the idea of integrating the two opens the door to some unique possibilities.

Aside from being able to record data on how the limb is used to help designers better customize the prosthesis to the person, the limb could also be augmented to make better use of the phone/computer.

Maybe some extra battery on board the limb? Some speakers for better speaker phone usage (and for the wearer’s listening pleasure, should he or she require some tunes).

Call it primitive cyborg tech with a lot of potential.

Prosthetic Robot limbs plug into the brain with light

Imagine a bionic arm that plugs directly into the nervous system, so that the brain can control its motion, and the owner can feel pressure and heat through their robotic hand. 

This prospect has come a step closer with the development of photonic sensors that could improve connections between nerves and prosthetic limbs.

Existing neural interfaces are electronic, using metal components that may be rejected by the body. Now Marc Christensen at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and colleagues are building sensors to pick up nerve signals using light instead. 

They employ optical fibres and polymers that are less likely than metal to trigger an immune response, and which will not corrode.

The sensors are currently in the prototype stage and too big to put in the body, but smaller versions should work in biological tissue, according to the team.

Whisper light

The sensors are based on spherical shells of a polymer that changes shape in an electric field. The shells are coupled with an optical fibre, which sends a beam of light travelling around inside them.

The way that the light travels around the inside of the sphere is called a "whispering gallery mode", named after the Whispering Gallery in St Paul's Cathedral, London, where sound travels further than usual because it reflects along a concave wall.

The idea is that the electric field associated with a nerve impulse could affect the shape of the sphere, which will in turn change the resonance of the light on the inside of the shell; the nerve effectively becomes part of a photonic circuit. In theory, the change in resonance of the light travelling through the optical fibre could tell a robotic arm that the brain wants to move a finger, for instance.

Signals could be carried in the other direction by shining infrared light directly onto a nerve – this is known to stimulate nerves – guided by a reflector at the tip of the optical fibre.

To use working versions of the sensors, nerve connections would need to be mapped. For example, a patient could be asked to try to raise their missing arm, so that a surgeon could connect the relevant nerve to the prosthesis.

Bionic dog

The researchers plan to demonstrate a working prototype on a cat or dog within the next two years. Before then, the sensor will need to be shrunk from hundreds of micrometres to 50 micrometres. 

The project has $5.6 million of funding from the US military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Christensen says one day the sensors and optical fibre could acts as "jumper cord" to restore movement and sensation to patients with spinal cord damage, by routing nerves in the brain to the legs, circumventing the damaged area.

Ravi Bellamkonda, a bioengineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, is impressed. "I would be excited to have them succeed – it is important to develop robust interfaces to the nervous system," he says.

But Marc Gasson of the University of Reading, UK, says the sensors may still be rejected by the body. "Certainly these are largely biocompatible materials. However, I doubt you can totally rule out some form of immune response," he says.

This prosthetic arm designed by Hans Alexander Huseklepp

Immaculate arm

This prosthetic arm was designed by Hans Alexander Huseklepp, a designer in Norway.

It is designed to be connected to the wearer's nervous system, like the most advanced, but less aesthetically designed, prosthetics currently are.

Because each of its joints is a globe joint it is capable of a larger freedom of movement than a normal human arm.

The exterior parts of the arm are made from the plastic Corian, the inner layer is textile.

This image is a model built to demonstrate the concept.

Out of uncanny valley

Huseklepp says that he wanted to get away from traditional designs, which hide their technological skeletons under silicone rubber.

"They imitate the look of a natural arm perfectly but as soon as someone touches it they realise it’s a prosthetic," he says.

This can make things awkward due to an effect dubbed "Uncanny Valley", a term used to describe how close mimics of human appearance seem more creepy than more stylised attempts.

(Image: Hans Alexander Huseklepp)