With funding from the European Union, researchers have developed an artificial hand that allows amputees to feel objects that they’re holding as well as pressure on the hand. The SmartHand has sensors that detect tactile information, which makes the product different from other prosthetic hands, according to Fredrik Sebelius, a researcher from Lund University in Sweden. Like some current prosthetic hands, the device has electrodes that record myoelectric signals from muscles on the forearm and transmits the information to motors in the prosthetic. However, Sebelius tells CNN that the SmartHand uses sensors to relay the tactile data to actuators on the arm, which then pass on the sensory feedback. He says this hasn’t been done in the past.
The device plays on the phantom feelings that amputees experience. For example, when a pressure sensor in the prosthetic index finger sends the forearm a signal, the brain interprets this signal as a feeling. The sensor does this by targeting a part of the forearm that triggers an area in the brain associated with the finger.
The device is intended for amputations below the elbow and could be commercially available in two years.
