Technology Aid: Southeast University Helps Prosthetic "Smart Hands" Win
On October 26, at the third "Global Assistive Technology Olympics" ("Cybionic Olympics") held in Zurich, Switzerland, Xu Min showed extraordinary abilities with her prosthetic limbs. She performed well in a series of complex movements such as lifting heavy objects, grabbing pieces of paper, and twisting light bulbs. She won the championship in the "Upper Limb Prosthetics" category in one fell swoop, creating a new history for my country in the world's top technology assisting the disabled event and setting a new best result.
The "Global Assistive Technology Olympics", an international event founded by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, has effectively promoted the vigorous development and industrialization of disability-assisted technology. The finals can be called a feast of technology and competition. 76 teams from 26 countries competed fiercely in 8 major categories. Among them, the competition in the "Upper Limb Prosthetics" group was even more intense. The rules of the competition are strict and challenging. The participating teams need to complete 10 prosthetic operation tasks at once, such as lifting heavy objects with prosthetic limbs, cooperating with both arms, grasping fine objects, and blind box grabbing. The final score depends on the number of tasks completed and the time spent. On the field, the Chinese athletes operated their prosthetic limbs as if they were part of their own bodies. They completed dozens of movements accurately in just 8 minutes. Their wonderful performance won bursts of applause from the audience, and thunderous applause echoed in the field.
The success behind Xu Min’s victory is the hard work of the scientific research team at the Institute of Robot Sensing and Control Technology of Southeast University over the years. This is a team full of wisdom and innovative spirit, who are committed to using technology to change the lives of people with disabilities. So, how does the prosthetic “smart hand” achieve “human-machine integration” with the disabled, so as to complete those seemingly impossible complex movements? Song Aiguo, head of the R&D team and director of the Institute of Robot Sensing and Control Technology of Southeast University, unveiled the mystery for us. It turns out that when a person is about to make a certain action, the brain first senses the surrounding environment and then generates brain waves. These brain waves are conducted along the spinal nerves. When they reach the forearm, the myoelectric signal begins to play a role in controlling muscle contraction, thereby driving the action. The scientific research team of Southeast University cleverly attached a pair of electrode pads to the skin of the athlete's forearm. This pair of electrode pads is like a magical key, which can accurately interpret and identify the electromyographic signals of the residual limb, and closely connect it with the prosthetic limb to smoothly drive the movement of the prosthetic limb.
In order to ensure that the operation of prosthetic limbs can reach a high level of "zero error", the R&D team of Southeast University is extremely ingenious. They customized a wearable shoulder strap for the players. This shoulder strap looks ordinary, but it actually contains a secret. It has a stretch sensor inside. This stretch sensor is like a keen observer, able to monitor the movement of the player's shoulders when arching their backs in real time. In this way, the shoulder displacement signal monitored by the sensor can cooperate with the electromyographic signal obtained from the residual limb to accurately control the opening and closing angle of the fingers and the rotation angle of the wrist joint. What's amazing is that there is an ingenious correlation between the two: the greater the angle of the back arch, the greater the opening and closing of the prosthetic fingers. In addition, in order to further optimize the performance of the prosthetic limb, the team used advanced 3D printing technology in the production of some parts. The application of this technology not only effectively reduces the weight of the "smart hand", but also greatly reduces the burden on the wearer, making the prosthetic limb more comfortable and convenient during use.
In daily life, seemingly ordinary actions such as twisting light bulbs, stacking cups, and carrying kettles require extremely fine control of the grasping force for prosthetics. In this regard, Hu Xuhui, a member of the R&D team and a postdoctoral fellow at the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the Southeast University research team implanted force tactile sensors on the fingers of the prosthetic limb. This small sensor is like a precise dynamometer, which can keenly detect the size and distribution of the prosthetic gripping force when grabbing an object, and can transmit the signal to the arm through vibration stimulation. The secret is that the greater the gripping force, the stronger the vibration stimulation generated, and the player can accurately determine how much force needs to be applied based on the intensity of the vibration. Not only that, in order to make the grasping function of the prosthetic limb more comprehensive and diversified, the Southeast University R&D team also carefully set up four functional areas of different shapes on the prosthetic fingers. Each functional area is like a "grabber" tailor-made for objects of specific shapes. They are used to grasp objects of different shapes, truly realizing the refinement of the grasping function of the prosthetic limb.
In this competition, the "blind box picking" project is undoubtedly the biggest challenge. This project requires players to use prosthetic limbs to pass through blocked brushes and grab objects of different hardness without being able to see the objects at all. The difficulty can be imagined. However, the scientific research team of Southeast University found a way to break through with its outstanding wisdom and innovation capabilities. They cleverly installed a camera in the prosthetic finger. Through advanced visual recognition technology, the camera can convert the captured image signal into a light signal, just like giving the prosthetic limb a pair of "eyes" to assist the player in successfully completing the grabbing task. It is precisely because of this unique design that the Chinese team became the only team among all participating teams to complete this difficult task, demonstrating the strong advantages of Southeast University's scientific research results.
In Song Aiguo’s view, this hard-won gold medal is of great significance. It is not only a strong proof of Southeast University’s scientific research strength, but also adds a glorious touch to “Made in China” and fully demonstrates to the world the vigorous development and great progress of the rehabilitation of disabled people in my country. "We always insist on conducting scientific research based on meeting people's actual needs." Song Aiguo said firmly. Looking forward to the future, the R&D team of Southeast University is very ambitious. They will continue to uphold their love for scientific research and care for the disabled community, and continue to develop prosthetic hands that have a stronger sense of human-machine integration, more practical operating functions, and are lighter for daily use. Let technology become the warm sunshine in the lives of the disabled community, provide more convenience and hope for their lives, and allow them to meet the challenges of life more confidently and embrace a better future with the help of technology.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
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