Prosthetics have come a long way, from the early days of wood, tin, or leather to modern limbs made from carbon fiber and silicon. Once basic, yet functional, they're now advanced and bionic. Here at Atomlims, I've come to see how the latest technology is bringing the next generation of artificial arms. They're developing a prosthetic with a full range of human motion that's using signals from the brain to control those movements.

The most advanced state-of-the-art prosthetics to be controlled today is what you call myoelectric control. So that's putting electrodes on your stump or residual limb. And the difference between what you would do today with a state-of-the-art arm versus with an Adam limb's arm is we basically cover your stump in electrodes, and you, when you first put the arm on, you take about five minutes and you Train it up. And what that looks like is we say, All right, with your phantom limb that we can't see, but you can flex your finger, extend your finger, rotate your wrist, rotate it the other way. Our machine learning and AI system takes a huge amount of training and spits out a result so that now you, whenever you think, can just move. So there's nothing in your head, nothing on your head, nothing in your arm. It's all this surface electrode and AI that basically powers it.

The arm is worn via a strengthened vest or shirt, which the arm connects to via an interface. Reducing reducing the need for custom-made sockets or the input of clinicians. Jason lost his left arm in an industrial accident in 2012. He's been working with Atomlimbs to test and develop their new prosthetic.

Tell me a little bit what this is like to operate. Obviously, you're controlling this right now. You're moving this essentially by thinking about it. How are you thinking of that? What's the process that you're going through?

Well, just like with anything, using your regular hand, I'm I'm still thinking about the motions, and I have a phantom limb. It still feels like I'm just moving my regular hand. It's a little bit more difficult, obviously, because my muscles are tiny. With a TMR surgery, they've actually taken the three major nerves that are controlling your entire hand and integrated them into three different muscles. Now, you're not flexing the entire muscle now. You're flexing just a portion of that muscle. There's a lot of concentration. It has to into making those movements. It's not as natural, obviously, as moving your regular hand. It's over time and just with practice, I think it's just become easier over the years.

Many existing bionic arms have a range of predetermined or programmable grips that the hand can perform, such as pinch grips or full fist. The Atomlims arm allows for individual finger control with haptic feedback.

So you're getting vibration or something from the arm that's telling you when you're gripping the glass?

Yes, exactly. When I reach in, I grab something and I hold it for a certain amount of time. Right now, already, just at that point, it kicked in, and I'm getting some vibrational feedback here. So that's my indicator that I know that the hand is not going to automatically open and drop whatever I'm holding. Nobody else does that. Compared to my old prosthetic, there was always a... You had to constantly... I don't have to sit here and watch the baseball right here in my hand because I know it's got a good grip.

Although not an amputee myself, I was able to put on some sensors and try a digital twin of the arm via the control software. It's safe to say it was a hit.

No way.

Within just a few minutes of training, I was able to perform several different motions and movements of the arm. What the This is phenomenal.

This is one of the most incredible things I've ever done. The only way I can describe it is it's like on a games controller, I've mapped different buttons to different muscles that I've got here. So when you said for the grip, well, I don't know what a grip feels like, so I just chose something that feels vaguely similar, and that's the one that I'm using to open and close the hand, and the same for the elbow. The elbow one is a bit easier for me to do because I have that range of motion. That's the the most natural one. But for the grip, there we go, see. And then for the wrist is probably the most difficult one because I'm having to use a bit of rotation. It's probably just looks really mundane to most people, but to me, this is incredible.

The arm being developed here is still at an early stage. The company are gathering data ahead of regulatory filings in the US. Of course, the biggest stumbling block for disabled people accessing new technology is cost, with the latest developments often being unaffordable, except for those with deep pockets. Exactly how much the Atomlims arm will be is yet to be confirmed, though they claim the goal is to make it available at around the same price as a non-bionic arm in the US, approximately $20,000. As technology advances, the hope is that prosthetics in the future will become more affordable, more versatile, and ultimately, more intelligent.

Absolutely amazing. That's the best workout I've ever had.