A short paper on Bionics and its implications. For the people without disability, technology makes things easier and for the people with disability, technology makes things possible.

1. Origin And Future Of Bionics
Abstract
(in response to paper presentation at ADASTRA13-snist)
The term bionics applied to those technologies derived from nature, imitated, copied or derived from
it. It is the study of functions, characteristics and phenomena observed in the living beings, in order to
apply the knowledge in the conception of new techniques and in creation of new devices and
machines for use of man. The study being applied in various fields like in computer science,
chemistry, design, aviation, textile, engineering etc.
The purpose of this paper being to highlight the advancement of bionics in medical use. It is the
ultimate goal of the same is to help the amputee or disabled get back they have lost. To aid for that
since many years many engineers have tried to build wheel chairs, artificial limbs etc. But they all
came with many drawbacks and hence many people either growing out of it or not using at all. Some
of the drawbacks of such conventional limbs are:
1) less degrees of freedom
2) available degrees of freedom being very slow and time tacking and
3) Still uses the conventional bicycle wire to control the movement
As the advent of technology, there came what is called as Myoelectric prosthesis. These uses the
potentials or electromyography signals from voluntary contraction of muscles within the residual
limbs on the surface of skin to control the movements of the prosthesis such as elbow flection/
extension, wrist rotation or closing/opening the fingers. On the contrary to electrical switch prosthesis
which utilizes straps, wires etc. it has pickup electrodes placed over flexors and extensors transferring
signals to the microprocessor and directing to separate electrical motors. But it too comes with
drawbacks such as only few moments hardly three could be reproduced and simultaneous motions are
not possible. And the biggest of them being the presence of muscles after the trauma, in fact the
person who has lost the whole arm cannot be given such a technology.
So it is evident that there has to exists such technology where in the several components has to
integrate into body’s function. Biosensors exist that detect signals from user’s nervous system relays
it to controller, processes and actuates it and send to the controller. So that user just has to think about
the movement and its done, it’s going to be intuitive and natural. Then what’s the deal it then boils
down that though we have understood how the central nervous system interacts with the muscle but
this knowledge is difficult in making connections due to high number of nerve fibres which controls
the single muscle. However large number of nerves has an advantage, when the brain sends a large

2. number of signals to muscle in this case prosthesis some of them get picked to tell the mechanized
arm to perform. the muscle reinnervation procedure which takes an amputee’s own nerves and
connects them to a healthy muscle. In this case, four of Mr. Sullivan’s nerves were dissected from the
shoulder and transferred to the muscles of hischest. Doing so allows the user to move his or her
prosthetic arm as if it were a real limb – by simply thinking about what they want the arm to do. The
bionic arm, or myoelectric arm, is driven using electrical signals from the muscles of the chest, now
activated by the user’s own thought-generated nerve impulses. These impulses are sensed, via surface
electrodes, from the pectoral muscle and carried through to the mechanical arm, causing the arm to
move.
Some of the recent marvels in bionics include thecochlear implants; have been able to overcome the
obstacle of sending feedback to the brain. While bionics has already opened the door for replacing
lenses and corneas, it still is focusing on understanding how to engineer a new eye for those who have
a retinal disease, which would enable 10 million people to regain a sense of sight.
The future of Bionics is very promising, opening the doors to those people who actually require help
in a lot we. As the technology advance we can think of artificial skin, artificial backbone etc. The
development of sensory prostheses, cochlear implants, and artificial vision have proven to be three
large steps leading up to the ultimate goal of connecting any mechanical body part to the brain.
Before this can happen, however, a very deep understanding of all three steps, including solving the
unknowns about each is a must. Since one step leads to the next, every unknown causes even larger
problems in approaching the final solution.
For the people without disability, technology makes things easier and for the people with disability,
technology makes things possible.
M.Zubair Ahmed
GNITC
MECH