O&P Almanac
January 1997

Excerpt from the Article:
O&P in the 21st Century:
Where are we headed?

... Michael Tompkins, president of Animated Prosthetics Inc., dreams of an evolutionary curve that would begin with a sensor on a patient's arm that would extract information needed to move all five fingers on a prosthetic hand in a natural motion. That would lead to implants inside the arm that would transmit information from the nerve to the prosthesis. Finally, it would evolve into systems where the information could flow both ways - to and from the prosthesis.

What is needed, he says, is a better understanding of the electrical signals that flow from the brain to the arm, allowing someone to open his or her hands with just a thought. Handling such information isn't the problem; technology already exists that allows digital signal processors to extract unbelievable amounts of data from small sensors. The problem is extracting that information from the body. A method such as imbedded sensors is not, after all, such a far cry from pacemakers.

No matter what direction the research takes, better power sources must be developed. Lithium batteries, which spurred the growth of consumer electronic products, already have been used in control systems developed by Animated Prosthetics.