After almost 10 years in the making, the LUKE bionic arm is ready to be launched later this year.
The company developing the prosthetic device, Mobius Bionics, presents the LUKE bionic arm on its website is ready for primetime. According to PC Mag, on Monday, June 11, the medical device company has announced that it will offer the prosthetic arm by year's end.
The LUKE bionic arm will help amputees lift and grip objects. Once it's released, the prosthetic device will be available via licensed healthcare professionals. Mobius Bionics, the company producing LUKE, boasts that the bionic arm will "change the game for amputees."
The technology behind the prosthetic device dates back to 2006. At the time, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was looking for ideas to create upper-extremity prosthetic devices for a new generation of amputees, especially for those returning from combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
DARPA presents its program to revolutionize prosthetics technology on its official website. The research project called DEKA Research is run by Segway founder and inventor Dean Kamen. His team came up with the LUKE prosthetic (the Life Under Kinetic Evolution).
The LUKE bionic arm was already tested over the years for over 10,000 hours of use by nearly 100 amputees. In the year 2014, the advanced prosthetic device received FDA approval.
According to an official FDA press release, the innovative prosthesis offers a new opportunity for people with arm amputations. The DEKA Arm System is more advanced than current prostheses and may allow some people to perform more complex tasks in a way more closely resembling "the natural motion of the arm."
The LUKE bionic arm will be available in different configurations designed for people with forearm through shoulder-level amputations. According to Digital Trends, the prosthetic device restore amputees' ability to lift a bag of groceries from floor to tabletop, reach behind their back or overhead, grip an egg or gallon of milk without breakage or slipping, hold a glass of water overhead or at waist level without spilling and sense how firmly something is being grasped.
