Pflogging ... in pursuit of accelerated value creation

Biomechatronics is an effort to recreate & integrate mechanical elements of the human body using a synthesis of multiple technologies. Research and development costs for breakthroughs in prosthetic devices are enormous, and few private companies have interested in pursing the challenges and risks inherent in such developments for such a comparatively small market; for example, in the United States, only about 6000 people require arm prostheses each year. Under normal economic conditions and market forces, there is thus little financial incentive for entrepreneurs or companies to pursue creating a new, next-generation prosthetic arm. However, with over 1600 soldiers returning from the latest Iraq conflict with at least one arm missing, there are new opportunities and funding sources for innovations in treating these wounded soldiers. An effort from the Defense Research Projects Agency is underway that could be leading to some real breakthroughs in this area. 

DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program is breaking amazing new ground. In a speech given at their 24th Systems and Technology Symposium in 2005, the program manager, COL Geoffrey Ling, M.D., Ph.D., said, “DARPA has undertaken the monumental task of fulfilling our pact to our soldiers by embarking on an effort to provide fully integrated limb replacements that enable victims of upper body limb loss to perform arm and hand tasks with [the] strength and dexterity of the natural limb. . . in four years, we anticipate having a prosthetic arm that will be controlled identically to the way that we control our biological arms.”

Many are involved in this effort, including the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Dean Kamen's Deka Research group, and John Hopkin's Applied Research Laboratory. Prototypes currently provide near-human strength and are both functional and similar in appearance to the native limb, and weigh about 8 pounds. These prototypes offer increased range of motion, strength, endurance and dexterity over existing prostheses, and are easy to learn to use. DARPA is currently planning transitioning the technology to the clinical community for trials, and hopes for an FDA approval and marketable product within 4 years.

Of course, with a longer time horizon, and other parallel technologies under development, you can ses where this is headed.