DOD-funded Technology Lets Muscles Control Prosthetic Hand
From: Aerospace & Defense Technology - 03/04/2015

After years of intense research and support from Defense Department agencies
and a private foundation, a Marine who lost his right hand in Afghanistan is
testing new technology that could change everything in the years ahead for
someone who loses a limb. The implantable myoelectric sensor system, or IMES,
was developed by the California-based Alfred E. Mann Foundation. Now in
clinical trials for Food and Drug Administration approval, thanks to 31-year-
old Marine Corps Staff Sgt. James Sides, the system lets a patient with
sensors, or electrodes, implanted into forearm muscles intuitively control
the movements of a prosthetic hand.

'Signals come from the brain, down through the spinal cord, out through the
peripheral nerves and into the muscles," said Dr. Paul F. Pasquina, a
physician and chairman of the Department of Physical Medicine and
Rehabilitation at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
and director of the university's Center for Rehabilitation Sciences Research.
Those signals are helped along by a wireless communication scheme that
modulates a magnetic field generated by a coil laminated in the wall of the
prosthetic arm, Pasquina said. Each implantable sensor is a custom-designed
integrated circuit packaged in a tiny biocompatible capsule. Reverse
telemetry, an automated communications process, is used to transfer data from
the implanted sensor to external electronics, and forward telemetry is used
to transmit power and settings to the sensors, he added.

With his robotic hand and six of the eight implanted electrodes, Sides simply
thinks about opening or closing his hand, moving his thumb or rotating his
wrist to make it happen. He can even shake hands with people, easily creating
a firm grip. Sides' prosthetic uses six of the eight electrodes, and Pasquina
said they could tap into the extra two tomorrow if they had a hand that would
allow more activities, such as bending the wrist back and forth.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.aerodefensetech.com/component/content/article/1209-ntb/insider/21719

Source:
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121685

Links:
DARPA Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program 
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/BTO/Programs/Revolutionizing_Prosthetics.aspx

Special Report: Science and Technology
http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2011/1011_science-tech/