Bionic eye heralds cyborg revolution

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Bionic eye heralds cyborg revolution

An electronic eye that works like the real thing foreshadows the development of a new generation of bionic eyes and other "cyborg" technology seen in the film "Terminator" and other Hollywood sci-fi movies.

The electronic eye uses a curved detection surface like a human eye, made of "stretchable electronics."

The first of its kind, the bionic eye produces exceptional images with lower distortion and with a broader field of view than possible with conventional flat camera microchips.

However, the underlying approach to producing flexible electronic surfaces of silicon chip sensors could find uses in moulding chips to the human body and 'smart' prosthetics, leading to new opportunities for doctors to boost the body with electronics.

Conventional imaging technologies have been developed for use in rigid semiconductor materials, glass plates and plastic sheets, all of which are flat in nature.

The new technique creates an array of silicon detectors and electronics in a stretchable, interconnected mesh that allows flat layouts to be transformed into curved shapes.

A team led by Profs John Rogers at the University of Illionois, Urbana Champaign, and Yonggang Huang of Northwestern University in Evanston, describe in Nature how they used well established electrical materials and processing but in unusual designs that allow large amounts of compressibility and stretchability, thanks to the flexible mesh of wire-connected sensors, each of which is a pixel in the resulting camera.

Researchers are testing the same design principles in a range of other applications, including as a thin, wrap around monitor to detect electrical signals crackling across the undulating surface of the human brain.

Conventional digital cameras use flat chips based on rigid, brittle semiconductor wafers that fracture at strains of less than 1 per cent.

While such a conventional flat array of sensors cannot flex without damaging its light-sensitive pixels, the new technology puts the strain on the wires, each flexing as much as 40 per cent.

Since the wires absorb the strain, the pixels are barely stressed, even when affixed to the hemispherical retina-shaped housing of the new experimental camera.

"Mechanics helps to reduce the stresses and strain in components, and guide and optimise the system design," said Prof Yonggang Huang.

The current sensor array, shaped around a rubber cup, includes only 256 pixels, but because the technology is based on established materials and manufacturing processes, the researchers ultimately expect more sophisticated sensors in higher density arrays.

"We believe that some of the most compelling areas of future application involve the intimate, conformal integration of electronics with the human body, in ways that are inconceivable using established technologies," said Prof Rogers

"This approach allows us to put electronics in places where we couldn't before," Prof Rogers added. "We can now, for the first time, move device design beyond the flatland constraints of conventional systems."

Over the last 20 years, many research groups have pursued electronic eye systems of this general type, but none has achieved a working camera.

Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy.

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World's first commercial bionic hand

The world's first commercial bionic hand has grabbed Britain's top engineering prize.

For years, the best doctors could do was equip disabled people with a glorified claw, a pincer-like device that mimics the opening and closing of a thumb and forefinger.

That has all changed thanks to a more realistic bionic hand unveiled by the Scottish company Touch Bionics, called the i-LIMB Hand, the culmination of decades of research.

The Livingston based company has now won the 2008 Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award for its i-LIMB Hand, a prosthetic device that looks and acts like a real human hand with five individually powered digits.

Ray Edwards, 53, who had all four limbs amputated in 1987 after developing blood poisoning (septicaemia) in the wake of cancer treatment, had the i-LIMB hand fitted a month ago.

"When I heard about this hand that looked like a human hand I had to get one. I'm right-handed and have got used to a carbon-fibre hook worked by a cord on that arm. So I asked Touch Bionics to put the i-LIMB hand on my left arm instead.

"When I first looked down and saw the i-LIMB hand I just cried - i-LIMB has helped me more psychologically than physically. That was the first time in 21 years that I had seen a hand opening there - it made me feel I was just Ray again. You can do so much with technology but it's got to make the user happy - and i-LIMB does."

As if to underline this, Edwards, who works for the Limbless Association charity, went skiing over the weekend at Xscape in Milton Keynes and managed to get down the nursery slope. And he has his first flying lesson on Tuesday.

The hand started life in 1963 in a research programme at Edinburgh's Princess Margaret Rose Hospital to help children affected by Thalidomide.

The i-LIMB Hand is one of the most compelling devices in the world prosthetics market," says Touch Bionics CEO Stuart Mead. "Since we launched it in July 2007 over 200 patients have been fitted with it all over the world - in just a few months it has evolved from an exciting new technology into a new benchmark in prosthetic devices."

HRH the Duke of Edinburgh presented the team with a £50,000 prize and the solid gold MacRobert Award medal at the Academy Awards Dinner in London last night.

"As a project, it scored very highly on all three of our criteria," says Dr Geoff Robinson, Chairman of the MacRobert Award Judging Panel. "In addition to many specific innovations in the design and fabrication of the artificial hand, Touch Bionics have fundamentally changed the benchmark for what constitutes an acceptable prosthesis.

"Their approach to marketing, in what is universally acknowledged to be a difficult market to penetrate, showed a very high standard of focus, commitment and success. The social benefit for those involved must be obvious to everyone. Having tried it myself, I can vouch for the fact that it really does work in the way portrayed, even if one is fortunate enough to still have one's own real hand alongside."

The three team members sharing the prize are: chief executive officer Stuart Mead, director of research and founder David Gow, project manager Stewart Hill, director of technology and operations Hugh Gill and director of marketing Phil Newman, all based at Touch Bionics in Livingston.

Touch Bionics faced tough competition to win the award - also shortlisted for this year's MacRobert Award were:
# The Automation Partnership, for Polar, a new robotic system designed specifically for the UK Biobank based near Stockport - the world's leading programme to create a large-scale resource for medical research.
# Johnson Matthey, for their compact catalysed soot filter for diesel cars.
# Owlstone Ltd, for their 'dime' sized chemical sensor on a silicon chip that provides a miniature detection system for trace amounts of a wide variety of chemicals. Owlstone's chip can detect explosives at airports, protect workers against gas exposure in heavy industry or detect fires before they begin from precombustion fumes.

London's Science Museum will be showcasing the iLIMB prosthetic hand in a special display in the Antenna science news gallery. The free exhibition runs from Thursday 12 June for three months.