(CNET) – Dreaming of a future where Luke Skywalker's replacement hand is more than a sci-fi fantasy, scientists have designed a "bionic arm" that enlists help from tiny robots to re-create the vital sensations forfeited when one loses an upper limb. The bots do that by safely vibrating muscles at the amputation site.
By 2028, the global prosthetics and orthotics market is expected to reach over $8 billion, according to a 2021 report from Grand View Research, but artificial limbs have hit a mechanical roadblock. They can't really account for many intuitive sensations that help us in our everyday lives, such as the way it feels to open and close our hands.
"We're still using technology that kind of reached its zenith around World War II," explained Paul Marasco, an associate professor in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute's Department of Biomedical Engineering and lead author of a study on the new bionic arm published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics.
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