DARPA sets goal for bionic arm by 2009

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, otherwise known as DARPA (you know, they created that thing which allows you to read this site -- the internet?), has tasked scientists with the goal of creating a bionic arm that looks, feels ,and works like a real arm by the year 2009. The $55 million project to be managed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore consists of dozens of teams of biologists, physicists and electronic engineers from both government, university and private organizations, each of which will design and construct sample arms, with one or more of the wining designs is then hoped to go into clinical testing on patients in 2009. Current plans range from arms that are controlled using an implantable device, to arms that are controlled by the nerves in the amputated area, to arms that would receive signals directly from the person's brain. If all the goals of the program are met, the bionic arm would be able to perform tasks as minute as buttoning a shirt button, and even provide sensory feedback.

[thecan @ May 29th 2006 6:48PM]

bionic commando... right on!

[Chris @ May 29th 2006 7:03PM]

I definately think that it would be cool if this worked out for them but I just can't put too much faith in something like this. If it was as easy as putting a date on when it needed to be done I am sure they would have made this a long time ago. "...arms that would receive signals directly from the person's brain." I am not pretending to know too much about any of the sciences required to create this arm but I really don't see how it is possible to get a direct link to the part of the brian that would control the human arm in order to perform a certain activity.Thats just me though and like I said, I don't really know much, I'm just a reader.

[Crazylink @ May 29th 2006 7:03PM]

By 2009 even the most amputated amputee will be able to fight Nazis.

[Required @ May 29th 2006 7:19PM]

We're getting closer to Ghost in the Shell.

[RC @ May 29th 2006 7:38PM]

Shadowrun cyberware? And damnit DARPS, stop throwing off the timeline..

[Matt @ May 29th 2006 7:38PM]

#2 - Just the other day there was some news about Asimo being controlled by brain waves doing exactly what this "brain control" is talking about.

Personally I think this is great if it works. Not too bothered about it working like a real arm so long as it has reasonable abilities and agility - would a use be able to write with it, catch a frisbee, type? If it can then great. Good stuff.

[Ben Heuberger @ May 29th 2006 7:56PM]

#2 All the technologies needed to make this happen have been proven in one way or the other. All that is really needed is a deadline and lots of money.

Personally I think that 2.5 years may be pushing the envelope just a bit, but who knows... there ARE some VERY talented folks out there who might make it happen.

[Max @ May 29th 2006 7:59PM]

How could you not want this arm? Even if you have two good working arms? Can you imagine how cool it would be. You could punch someone in the face and their head would EXPLODE! Like a tomato!

I can't wait to get one of these babies! The only problem is that I'm weak, so the arm would have to be pretty light to be able to stay on, and also to make sure that it doesn't wear the user out while he's fighting crime!

[furtim @ May 29th 2006 8:33PM]

Finally! We really DO have the technology!

I reckon the price tag will be a bit steeper than $6 mil, though.

[Jonathan @ May 29th 2006 8:41PM]

otherwise known as DARPA (you know, they created that thing which allows you to read this site -- the internet?),

HAHA i laugh at that, DARPA did not create the unterent, nor did the USA. It was CERN. They did it to link up computers so scientists can share their info faster and easier

[gangbangmasingill @ May 29th 2006 8:58PM]

finally automail

[Jay @ May 29th 2006 9:08PM]

Jonathan you got there before me :(

Don't forget that other guy who invented it, his name always escapes me.
god I love false information.

[Velocity @ May 29th 2006 9:27PM]

otherwise known as DARPA (you know, they created that thing which allows you to read this site -- the internet?),

HAHA i laugh at that, DARPA did not create the unterent, nor did the USA. It was CERN. They did it to link up computers so scientists can share their info faster and easier

I'd like to disagree (see below)
******************************
The USSR's launch of Sputnik spurred the U.S. to create the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in February 1958 to regain a technological lead. DARPA created the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) to further the research of the Semi Automatic Ground Environment program, which had networked country-wide radar systems together for the first time. J. C. R. Licklider was selected to head the IPTO, and saw universal networking as a potential unifying human revolution. Licklider recruited Lawrence Roberts to head a project to implement a network, and Roberts based the technology on the work of Paul Baran who had written an exhaustive study for the U.S. Air Force that recommended packet switching (as opposed to Circuit switching) to make a network highly robust and survivable. After much work, the first node went live at UCLA on October 29, 1969 on what would be called the ARPANET, the "eve" network of today's Internet. In December of 1970, Charles A. Petrik contacted the U.S. Navy and suggested that a special communications network, which the Department of Defense had built for use in the possiblitity of a nuclear attack, could also be used during peace time. Petrik convinced the military to connect the computers of the U.S. National Laboratories for scientific research purposes, and to allow these labs to get data to other labs faster, and safer.

The first TCP/IP wide area network was operational by 1 January 1983 , when the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) constructed a university network backbone that would later become the NSFNet. (This date is held by some to be technically that of the birth of the Internet.) It was then followed by the opening of the network to commercial interests in 1995. Important separate networks that offered gateways into, then later merged into the NSFNet include Usenet, Bitnet and the various commercial and educational X.25 Compuserve and JANET. Telenet (later called Sprintnet), was a large privately-funded national computer network with free dialup access in cities throughout the U.S. that had been in operation since the 1970's. This network eventually merged with the others in the 90's as the TCP/IP protocol became increasingly popular. The ability of TCP/IP to work over these pre-existing communication networks allowed for a great ease of growth. Use of Internet as a phrase to describe a single global TCP/IP network originated around this time.

The network gained a public face in the 1990s. In August 1991 CERN, which straddles the border between France and Switzerland publicized the new World Wide Web project, two years after Tim Berners-Lee had begun creating HTML, HTTP and the first few web pages at CERN. In 1993 the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign released the Mosaic web browser version 1.0, and by late 1994 there was growing public interest in the previously academic/technical Internet. By 1996 the word "Internet" was common public currency, but it referred almost entirely to the World Wide Web.

Meanwhile, over the course of the decade, the Internet successfully accommodated the majority of previously existing public computer networks (although some networks such as FidoNet have remained separate). This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary open nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network

Courtesy of Wikipedia

[Jonathan @ May 29th 2006 9:35PM]

Did CERN scientists actually invent the internet?

No. The internet was originally based on work done by Louis Pouzin in France, taken up by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in the US in the 1970's. The web however was invented and developed entirely by Tim Berners-Lee and a small team at CERN during 1989-1994. The story of the Internet and the Web can be read in "How the Web was born". Perhaps not as sexy as Angels and Demons, but everything in "How the Web was born" was first-hand testimony and research.

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html



thank you very much. and also according to Angles and Demonds a true fact. The USA always takes other people's tech and says they made them

[Dean @ May 29th 2006 9:42PM]

Luke Skywalker approves.

[Nigel @ May 29th 2006 9:51PM]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Whoa. Whooooaaaa.

Wait a sec.

AL GORE invented the internet!

=P

[Ian @ May 29th 2006 10:10PM]

Fools. Al Gore created the internet. Idiots.

[Nigel @ May 29th 2006 10:18PM]

Sorry Ian, I said it first! =P

But my confirmation email didn't arrive for a while! =S

[Velocity @ May 29th 2006 10:20PM]

Good points...although I havent read the book or material you quote from, if Louis Pouzin in France, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in the US did the hard yards into the technology and research behind the creation of the net, and that research was then later applied by DARPA and the rest of the American research Institutes, who would the creator be determined as...I believe one of the original founders of net technology (name escapes me) has always lamented the fact he never pursued his research into a practical model and thus nobody ever really equates his name to the internet or Web anymore. All it appears CERN did was put a gloss on the internet by creating a Browser, web pages and spreading it to the public, but the behind the scenes technology was done by others...Sorry to drivel, my point is, who is the creator, he who did the research and showed it as a possibility, or he who first applied it practically and made it a reality ?

example - who is the creator of the atom bomb. The person who first theorised its possibility (Don't know the name), or the person who actually made it (Oppenheimer)

[Fox McCloud @ May 29th 2006 11:41PM]

#6 - Just in case you forgot, we made it to the moon in less than 10 years. We hadn't even put a man in space, and 10 years later the moon had been visited at least once. (Sorry, I con't remember the exact amount of time.)

The only reason we couldn't do this in 2.5 years is because it won't stop the spread of communism. Or terrorism. If DARPA could convince people that "either we make this Bionic Arm, or the Terrorists will and they'll kill us all with it" then by november next year we'd have 10 soldiers in entire bionic suits.

#2 - As for direct linkage between the brain and the bionic arm, that's easy. If you could implant a bluetooth transmitter in their brain, then that's your answer. That, plus it would make phone calls a hell of a lot easier - why use a bluetooth headset when you can just think something to your bluetooth brain chip and it goes to your phone?

[Patrick @ May 29th 2006 11:41PM]

I have always wondered why Johns Hopkins University has so many of the letter s.

[Tony Rayo @ May 29th 2006 11:58PM]

Apperently Johns used to be just as common as John back in the 18th century. As far as the project, I'll be starting my first year at JHU's bio-medical engineering program next year and this is the kind of project I'd love to get my hands on (also to address earlier comments, yes the US may "borrow" many great ideas from other countries, but we also put fancy stickers on top of them and make them shinier!).

[nilram @ May 29th 2006 11:58PM]

So, we can put $55 million into a bionic arm, but how much into energy independence? Can we even set the goal of having energy independence? Oh wait, that might reduce the need for the DEFENSE Advanced Research Projects Agency...

[Tony Rayo @ May 30th 2006 12:11AM]

I don't normally spam post (post after posting), but nilram, besides mixing apples and oranges of politics, why can't you see the good of this project? DARPA (which has switched between being called DARPA and ARPA more than once because it doesn't work solely on defensive projects as seen here) has already given us a lot (the internet question is always in debate, there are a lot of elements that came together at the time, but ARPANET was part of the networking revolution) and what cannot be argued is how useful GPS has become to governments and the general public alike.

I'm sure if you took the time to check the facts (which would require a decent amount of work, while spewing random comments does not), you'd see that more than 55$ million dollars is already being spent by the U.S. government on alternative fuel and other such techmologies that will allow us to not be held at the mercy of those with the most reserves.

BTW I think the Bush Administation lead a horrible anti-envirnoment/pro-oil position, but I don't think raining on positive news just to complain about something unrelated helps anyone.

[Phi @ May 30th 2006 12:32AM]

"Don't fall for it! It's not really the DARPA chief, Donald Anderson...it's Decoy Octopus!"- lame videogame reference.

[danj3ris @ May 30th 2006 12:51AM]

Not a lame comment at all! If Engadget can have a picture up of Bionic Commando, one of the best NES games ever made Phi, than you can reference Metal Gear Solid, one of the best Playstation games ever made.

[Little Joe @ May 30th 2006 12:57AM]

we made it to the moon? i thought that was a cold war propaganda movie?

[crackpipe @ May 30th 2006 1:19AM]

The only problem I have with bionic limbs is that they always make em flesh colored. I mean if I had a bionic limb, I'd want it to look bionic. Shiny plated armor, with wires in it and spikes on the knuckles. Like badass. But instead it's always that fake peachy colored rubber. F that! Give me some borg looking sh**.

BTW, the Bionic Commando image is a nice touch. More screenshots of that game here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/bionic-commando/screenshots

[zuricher @ May 30th 2006 2:06AM]

noooooo skynet! we have to get that bionic arm out of the research facility, or they will build terminators to...

[mpmaley @ May 30th 2006 3:32AM]

Gimme some legs and I'll sign up to test em out. I know this is mainly for people that have problems like amputations but I'd love to replace my legs. I have some weird genetic disease that affects my heels and I'd love to be rid of it, also my knees suck. Both problems make it a pain to work my 8 hour shifts.

[Cybrid @ May 30th 2006 4:02AM]

Fantastic for disabled people (if they make it); basicaly brain's orders are nothing but electric pulses, the problem is that we don't understand the meaning, at least fully. Scientist must study things like: "¿3mv means to move the hand's finger or the entire arm?". Anyway I hope they make it.

[Actually... @ May 30th 2006 7:02AM]

Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the Internet, not DARPA

It is Internet, not internet

[Ivand Olivero @ May 30th 2006 7:48AM]

*Actually*

Tim Berners Lee created the www, not the Internet

[Matt Hadder @ May 30th 2006 7:56AM]

Fools! Jesus invented everything! Except for fossils, which are a figment of your imagination.

[exDARPA_worker @ May 30th 2006 8:53AM]

As someone who used to work with DARPA Project Managers, I personally know a few PM who couldn't even figure out how to set up their voicemail on their cell phone! Heck, the only they really do is dream up projects and hopefully Tony (Dir. of DARPA) approves it somehow since his decision are soley based on his moood d'jour

Just a few cents for someone who worked there few months ago and just couldn't stand the politics.

[Actually, Actually... @ May 30th 2006 9:13AM]

http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Kids#invent

Yeah OK then...

[�yvind Bj�rke, Norway @ May 30th 2006 9:56AM]

I lost an arm two years ago, so I kind of try to stay informed. Unlike Engadget. This whole article could be read on defencetech.org a year ago. Look up theire archives, april 2005 (I think it was).

CERN created Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, HTTP. Sending information over a distance, based on electrones was done by Graham Bell some time ago. Some say Tesla even did it before Bell.

Have a nice day

[�yvind Bj�rke, Norway @ May 30th 2006 10:02AM]

The entire link, scoll way down on the page.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/2005_04.html

[CJ @ May 30th 2006 10:16AM]

I just had ankle surgery and asked for bionic parts, unfortunately, all they had available were screws.

[Christopher Norton @ May 30th 2006 10:29AM]

Cheers for the Bionic Commando Pic. Great way to start the late week.

[Tomas @ May 30th 2006 10:56AM]

"22. So, we can put $55 million into a bionic arm, but how much into energy independence? Can we even set the goal of having energy independence?"

Um, if we have bionic arms, it will be easier to take over Venezuela.

[Brad Meyers @ May 30th 2006 11:57AM]

Hopefully, with the invention of the bionic arm, we won;t all lose our ability to jump.

[Phi @ May 30th 2006 12:25PM]

Well, you white guys can't jump anyways! LOL.

[Peter @ May 30th 2006 12:59PM]

I just hope that this DARPA project is more successful than the initial "Grand Challenge" races....

[nilram @ May 30th 2006 3:41PM]

Tony Rayo: yes, a very grumpy post on my part, but I didn't think it was farther afield than determining just who invented the internet.

I should have put my second sentence first -- my wish is that we would pursue energy independence with the same resolve, and my belief is that an agency that was truly focused on Defense would do so. Lest we forget, the DOD had it's origins in 1949 from (in part) the more aptly named War Department. Which also illuminates the irony that a Defense agency would fund an initiative for which it is so actively creating the need.

And, because I didn't affirm the value of the bionic arm initiative doesn't mean I don't see the good of this project. Many people will benefit and we'll learn much from the effort. I did not intend to take away from the good news on a very positive initiative -- many things deserve a Moon shot-type resolve, and a "bionic" arm is just such a worthy goal.

[Brad @ Nov 11th 2006 3:42PM]

How do I get a set of these arms and a set of legs as well? Also can they carry a set of programmed skills built into them?