Today I listened to the talk by Prof. Solzbacher from University of Utah on building biomedical devices. The small chips implanted in human brain send signals to the articial arms which uses wireless receivers. With this technology, an amputee can have command his synthetic arm, and a paralyzed person can command his hand. How remarkable our technology has become.
Solzbacher illustrated how implantable microchips are designed, constructured, and refined. How they have to fit into certain size requirement, and safety requirement. It is a lot of engineering.
A synthetic arm requires microchips, batteries that last long, wireless technology that sends neural signal out, a small-size computer that receives the signals and generates patterns and commands. All of these technologies have to come together to create a synthetic arm. In theory, each of these components can be done. But combining them and making them work in a practical environment poses new challenge. It is this combination that is most powerful.
