Compagnie Press “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him…..”
9 February 2007
DATE 9th FEBRUARY 2007
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him…..”
During the 1970’s every playground across North America and Western Europe would have seen schoolboys running in slow motion and supposedly seeing unfeasibly small objects many miles away. There was also a special sound effect from the boys that went something like “Da-da-da-da-da……” (I guess you had to be there). The phenomenon was due to a hugely popular TV programme ‘The Six Million Dollar man’ about a USAF test pilot whose limbs were replaced by bionics following the crash of his fighter jet. Since then a lot has changed – small boys don’t crave to be Steve Austen; $6M doesn’t seem that big a number for an R&D programme and the technology behind bionics is no longer science fiction any more.
University and Medical Researchers in USA have now developed technology that allows amputees to actuate their prosthetics using the tiny electrical impulses that their brain would naturally produce to actuate their arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet and toes. However, until recently the tactile or haptic sensors necessary to provide the brain with feedback to tell it about what was going on at the person’s finger tips, for example, was hugely problematic. Whilst some haptic sensors were available in theory, in practice they proved to be too insensitive, too bulky or too expensive for widespread deployment.
Whilst the obvious application for such sensors was for prosthetic fingers and hands the use of such sensors in a person’s prosthetic foot are equally important to assist amputees in balancing and fine motor control using their feet (as required for dancing, skating or skiing).
A low profile version of Zettlex’s LD technology is now being used to sense touch at a person’s prosthetic finger tips and provide electronic, closed loop haptic feedback control to the brain’s motor control functions. An array of sensors is being used in what resembles skin but that is actually made from multi-layer, flexible printed circuit board. The sensors provide signals that are certainly accurate enough to provide the user with information on grip, pressure and an indication of an object’s softness. A version of the technology to also provide information on temperature is also under development.
The research is currently at laboratory evaluation level but commercial application of the technology could be as close as 2 years away.
Notes for editors
Zettlex Ltd. is based in Cambridge, UK and is a high technology sensor company. The company aims to exploit commercially a unique collection intellectual property through the supply of sensors, sensor components and engineering contracts.
Further information is available from:
Mark Howard
Zettlex Printed Technologies Ltd.
Newton Court Newton Cambridge CB22 7PE Email mark.howard@zettlex.com
