Arm Technology Impact on Robotics Development

Researchers in Japan and Spain are making major strides toward bioengineered prosthetics that look, move, and function like real human limbs, using living muscle tissue and even the patient’s own cells. At the University of Tokyo, scientists created an 18cm muscle-driven robotic arm capable of finger movement. Their innovation, called MuMuTAs, uses rolled sheets of lab-grown muscle tissue and biocompatible components stimulated by electric pulses to mimic natural motion. Meanwhile, Spain’s Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has developed 3D bioprinted muscle structures with realistic internal architecture. Their work enables more precise local stimulation, better drug testing, and potential medical applications, including prosthetics that grow stronger and adapt like real muscles. Key challenges ahead include neural control, vascularization, long-term viability, and scaling. But researchers agree: functional, cell-based prosthetics and muscle systems are no longer science fiction.....they’re on the horizon. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ejWiMpF8

Artificial Intelligence can look intimidating - “black‑box” algorithms, pricey hardware, teams of PhDs. Yet remarkable results are possible with modest gear and a bit of curiosity. Take 17 year old Ben Choi. Instead of implanting electrodes in the brain (a procedure that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars), he placed postage stamp sized sensors on the skin of the forearm. These sensors pick up the tiny electrical pulses that our brains send to muscles signals so small they’re measured in microvolts. Here’s where AI enters the story: - Signal capture: The surface sensors record raw voltage changes every few milliseconds. - Pattern learning: A lightweight machine learning model (think of a mini neural network running on a laptop) studies those voltage patterns and learns to match them with the user’s intended hand motions - open, close, rotate, and so on. - Robotic action: A 3D printed arm receives the AI’s instructions and moves accordingly, almost in real time. Because everything runs on off the shelf parts - an Arduino microcontroller, free Python libraries, and affordable hobby grade motors - Ben kept the parts bill under US$300. That price point matters: sophisticated prosthetics and assistive robots typically run well into five or six figures, placing them out of reach for many people who need them most. Projects like this shows that: - Open source tools lower barriers: Frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Scikit‑learn put advanced algorithms a few commands away. - Community knowledge compounds: Tutorials, discussion boards, and hobbyist forums mean you rarely start from scratch. Yes, AI raises legitimate concerns - bias, misuse, security. But it also unlocks practical solutions that improve lives: smarter medical devices, safer vehicles, more intuitive home tech. Have you seen other low cost, high impact AI projects? #innovation #technology #future #management #startups

This time on my journey to make cool stuff, I developed an autonomous AI-powered robot! This project explores how deep learning and artificial intelligence are increasingly being applied to robotics, creating models that can not only learn to complete tasks but also fully control a robot to execute them. For this, I constructed two robotic arms: a leader arm and a follower arm. The leader arm was used to teleoperate the follower arm, demonstrating how to pick up a block and place it in a box. All these movements were recorded as data points, which, when combined with footage from a camera monitoring the entire scene, formed the foundation for our AI model. I then trained a specialized neural network called an action chunking transformer using this data. Through training, this network learned how to perform the task and can be applied back to the follower arm to predict and execute the necessary movements autonomously. A huge shoutout to Remi Cadene, Jessica Moss, and the Hugging Face LeRobot team for putting together the guides, robot design, and open source resources together in an approachable and intriguing format. I’m looking forward to further developing my robotics skills alongside my AI expertise! You can see the entire journey from start to finish of creating this robot in my latest video: https://lnkd.in/esu9-ZJd