{"id":92790,"date":"2019-06-27T23:22:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T06:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/machine-learning-makes-a-better-luke-skywalker-hand"},"modified":"2019-06-27T23:22:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T06:22:26","slug":"machine-learning-makes-a-better-luke-skywalker-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/machine-learning-makes-a-better-luke-skywalker-hand","title":{"rendered":"Machine learning makes a better Luke Skywalker hand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/machine-learning-makes-a-better-luke-skywalker-hand3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A 3D-printed prosthetic hand controlled using a new AI-based approach could significantly lower the cost of bionic limbs for amputees.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Real need: <\/strong>There are approximately 540,000 upper-limb amputees in the United States, but sophisticated \u201cmyoelectric\u201d prosthetics, controlled by muscle contractions, are still very expensive. Such devices cost between $25,000 and $75,000 (not including maintenance and repair), and they can be difficult to use because it is hard for software to distinguish between different muscle flexes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Handy invention: <\/strong>Researchers in Japan came up with a cheaper, smarter myoelectric device. Their five-fingered, 3D-printed hand is controlled using a neural network trained to recognize combined signals\u2014or, as they call them, \u201cmuscle synergies.\u201d Details of the bionic hand are <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/robotics.sciencemag.org\/lookup\/doi\/10.1126\/scirobotics.aaw6339\">published today<\/a> in the journal Science Robotics. <strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 3D-printed prosthetic hand controlled using a new AI-based approach could significantly lower the cost of bionic limbs for amputees. Real need: There are approximately 540,000 upper-limb amputees in the United States, but sophisticated \u201cmyoelectric\u201d prosthetics, controlled by muscle contractions, are still very expensive. Such devices cost between $25,000 and $75,000 (not including maintenance and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,11,1499,6,1501],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3d-printing","category-biotech-medical","category-cyborgs","category-robotics-ai","category-transhumanism-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}