In the real world, if your estranged father slices off your hand with a white-hot blade of light, you can’t just hop aboard the nearest medical vessel and have a perfect cybernetic replacement attached to your stump. You’ll likely end up with a hook, or if you’re lucky, a gruesome, pallid rubberized mechanical hand that opens and shuts like a crab claw. The engineers at SmartHand are trying to change that. Their latest bionic hand replacement, called SmartHand of course, delivers fine motor movement and even touch sensitivity to amputees.

The SmartHand has 40 sensors that relay information to nerve ends, giving users the sensation of touch. The latest SmartHand has been grafted to Swedish amputee Robin af Ekenstam. According to a TV interview, Ekenstam says he can feel the things he grasps with the SmartHand.

“I am using muscles which I haven’t used for years. I grab something hard, and then I can feel it in the fingertips, which is strange, as I don’t have them anymore. It’s amazing.”

Amazing indeed. For now, the SmartHand resembles a sleek Terminator unit, but the engineers are working on a more lifelike Luke version for the future.

Link to Gizmag article