What if instead of one hand on each arm, you had two? That’s what Sang-won Leigh is trying to achieve with his Robotic Symbiotic wearable that he developed as a project for MIT’s Fluid Interfaces course. The robotic hand (described as a “body integrated programmable joints interface”) is equipped with 11 motors that can be rearranged and reprogrammed to satisfy different uses. The device can serve as a large extra finger or as an entire hand. It can sit below your wrist and clamp onto things to hold them still, or pick up objects while your fleshy human hand is left free to, I don’t know, play with your phone.
The robotic hand is controlled separately from your real hand
The neat thing about Leigh’s robotic hand is that the machine is controlled separately from your real hand. You can hold your hand completely still and move the robotic appendage, and vice versa. How? The device senses electrical signals sent to the muscle in your forearm. This muscle is not used to move your hand, but after practicing for a few hours, you can flex and move it in ways that will cause the robot hand to respond.
You can also use the device as a joystick or trigger, actually manipulating it with your hand to control a computer interface or play a video game. While there certainly could be applications for people who have disabilities or were injured in combat, Leigh has something else in mind for his human-augmentation device. “A lot of people think about machine augmentation in terms of rehabilitation,” Leigh says, “But we envisioned it as an assistive technology that wasn’t just for people with challenges, but which could turn people with normal physiology into super humans.”
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