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Engineering Sensation in Artificial Limbs
By Kirk L. Kroeker
Advancements in mobile
electronics have led to several prosthetics innovations in
recent years, but providing reliable touch sensations to
users remains an elusive goal.
Researchers working in advanced prosthetics, a field that
draws on physics, biochemistry, and neuroscience, are
attempting to overcome key engineering challenges and make
potentially life-changing artificial limbs capable not only
of moving as naturally as healthy human limbs but also of
providing sophisticated sensory feedback for their users.
Improvements in materials science, electronics, and sensor
technologies, along with sizeable government funding in the
U.S. and abroad, are contributing to these efforts. However,
while leg prosthetics have advanced even to the point where
it is now possible for amputees to rival the capabilities of
nondisabled athletes in certain sports, the nuanced
movements of the human hand remain the most difficult to
replicate mechanically.
(This article appeared in
CACM, vol. 54, no. 4, April 2011, pp. 16-18.)
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