Bionic Finger Restores Touch

This Bionic Finger Restores Amputees' Sense of Touch

Gary Cutlack | March 8, 2016

A prototype bionic fingertip that allows the wearer to feel texture has been demonstrated by researchers, giving hope to the victims of amputation that robots may one day be of some actual use and not just the willing sexual playthings of the super-rich.
The paper from the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne says that: "An amputee was able to feel smoothness and roughness in real-time with an artificial fingertip that was surgically connected to nerves in his upper arm. Moreover, the nerves of non-amputees can also be stimulated to feel roughness, without the need of surgery, meaning that prosthetic touch for amputees can now be developed and safely tested on intact individuals."

 The bionic finger allows both amputees and non-amputees to distinguish between rough and smooth textures on a plastic plate. Signals from the finger are turned into neural signals with a computer algorithm (illustrated). Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3482068/Bionic-FINGERTIP-helps-amputee-sense-touch-textures-Man-lost-left-hand-able-feel-surfaces-prosthetic-digit.html

<more at http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2016/03/this-bionic-finger-restores-amputees-sense-of-touch/; related articles and links: http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/08/bionic-finger-textures/ (Bionic finger makes amputee feel texture on his phantom hand. The tech could be used in prosthetics and robotics. March 8, 2016) and https://documents.epfl.ch/groups/e/ep/epflmedia/www/20160308_BionicTouch/BionicFingertip_EN.pdf  (Amputee Feels Texture with a Bionic Fingertip. The future of prosthetic touch resolution: mimicking touch. An amputee feels rough or smooth textures in real-time — in his phantom hand — using an artificial fingertip connected to nerves in the arm. The advancement will accelerate the development of touch enabled prosthetics. March 8, 2016)>