Abstract
Robotics offers methods and technologies for prosthetics to progress, and to obtain wearable devices that can substitute the functions of organs or parts of the human body. I have worked for years on the artificial hand, investigating how to replicate touch, to obtain the maximum operational characteristics of the prostheses to restore the ability to grasp in activities of daily living and to ‘feel’ the characteristics of objects. In the scenario of hand prosthesis the robot is no longer outside of us, but on us, and it converses with the intimate part of us thanks to the neuro-prosthesis. This is how wearable robotics originates.
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Notes
- 1.
Visit the Boston Dynamics website http://www.bostondynamics.com.
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DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is the Research Agency of the American Department of Defense. For more information, visit the website http://www.darpa.mil.
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C. M. Oddo, et al. Intraneural stimulation elicits discrimination of textural features by artificial fingertip in intact and amputee humans, Elife 5 (2016): e09148.
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Bionics is defined as the “science that studies the sensorial and motor functions of living organisms (and their components), with the aim of reproducing them or enhancing them with devices of various kinds…”. A year ago, there was the introduction in Pisa of the Master’s degree in Bionics Engineering organised jointly by the University of Pisa and the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. For my colleagues and myself, this was a very important act which consolidated the status of bionics as a scientific discipline, and as teaching subject with scientific dignity according to the Aristotelian interpretation. At the moment in which an engineering study program institutes a course with the title of a specific scientific area, it receives an academic approval that attributes both maturity and dignity. Due to the mere fact of being taught, we can say that also in Italy bionics is now accredited as a science and technology of the future, because within a year we shall have new engineers graduating in Bionics Engineering.
- 8.
L. E. Lipetz, Bionics, Science, New Series, Vol. 133, No. 3452 (Feb. 24, 1961), pp. 588-590+592–593.
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D. Borton,, et al. Personalized neuroprosthetics, Science translational medicine 5.210 (2013): 210rv2–210rv2.
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- 13.
To see an authoritative video example of a neural-implanted patient who recovers tactile feelings using a robotic arm, see http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/13/13269824/brain-implant-chip-feel-touch-robot-arm-paralyzed-tetraplegia.
- 14.
In the biomedical engineering sector in which these disciplines are studied, rehabilitation bioengineering, this situation is defined as support or functional substitution. The biomedical engineer studies and designs systems which exploit bionics and robotics in order to treat a specific problem and deals with the clinical implementation of the system.
- 15.
S. Raspopovic, et al. Restoring natural sensory feedback in real-time bidirectional hand prostheses, Science translational medicine 6.222 (2014): 222ra19–222ra19.
- 16.
S. R. Soekadar, et al. Hybrid EEG/EOG-based brain/neural hand exoskeleton restores fully independent daily living activities after quadriplegia, Science Robotics 1.1 (2016): eaag3296.
- 17.
Recently a document was issued by the Executive Office of President Obama, edited by the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Technologies, Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence, October 2016 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/whitehouse_files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/preparing_for_the_future_of_ai.pdf.
- 18.
Also the author is founding partner of IUVO, a spinoff of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, which deals with wearable robotics and exoskeletons.
- 19.
In the European Union, the framework programs have funded research for medical applications, supporting the research into develo** rehabilitation or personal assistance exoskeletons, and within a few years results are expected from industrial exploitation of the intellectual property generated.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank all my family, and in particular my children Andrea and Marianna, for having been close to me in the ups and downs of my recent life, with their affection, support and understanding.
There are some people to whom I feel profound gratitude: my colleagues and students of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies with whom I have collaborated and shared many projects over the years, especially my teacher Paolo Dario, who taught me the fundamentals of research and fought for the academic and scientific future of all of us, and my students Calogero, Christian and Nicola, because they make me feel proud of them.
I would like to say a special thank you to Alessandro Aresu, my ‘Editor’, for the firm friendship and professionalism with which he constantly stimulated my writing. Thank you also to Marco Meloni and to the whole School of Politics for having cultivated the idea of this book.
The rereading of the manuscript was carried out with great patience and rigor by Luigi Bimbi, Lia Marianelli, Nicola Vitiello and Calogero Oddo. Each of them dedicated time and great skill in suggesting how to improve the work.
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Carrozza, M.C. (2019). The Robot Inside Us. In: The Robot and Us. Biosystems & Biorobotics, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97767-6_5
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