Medical Technology

[Anchor Lead]

Spinal cord injury and ensuing paralysis of fingers make it almost impossible to drink a cup of coffee, much less handle chopsticks. Now, a team of Korean scientists developed the world's first wearable robot hand that integrates artificial intelligence and robotics for people with hindered hand movements.

[Pkg]

Jeong Gwang-hun suffered a spinal cord injury in an accident when he was 20 years old, which had left him quadripelegic. Long rehab therapy improved the movements in his upper body, but he still can't move his fingers as well as he wants.

[Soundbite] Jeong Gwang-hun(Spinal Cord Injury Patient) : "I need a prosthetic hand because I can't move my fingers. But prostheses available now cannot help with this problem."

Now a team of Korean scientists from the Seoul National University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology had developed the world's first "wearable robot hand" for people with such a disability. This is the result of integrating artificial intelligence with a so-called flexible "soft robot." When a person is seen reaching for an object, artificial intelligence identifies that action as the person's intent to grab an object based on the arm movements and the distance between the hand and the object. Once artificial intelligence completes the repetitive learning process, just touching an object makes the robot hand move just like a human hand.

[Soundbite] Prof. Jo Sung-ho(Dept. of Computer Science, KAIST) : "It is capable of more natural and quicker actions. I believe this technology can be applied to not only wearable robots, but also ordinary ones."

But the science team says that the robotic hand does not work properly when the object or hand disappears from sight. They intend to address this problem by further studying the electric currents running through the muscles.