Swiss Researchers Develop Robotic Third Arm Controlled With Breathing and Gaze

Amaze Lab

Sometimes it would be really nice to have another hand and soon that could be a very real possibility. It’s all part of a new extra limb testing program being used by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and it’s pretty wild.

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00:00 Sometimes it would be really nice to have another hand, and soon that could be a very

00:07 real possibility.

00:08 This is part of a new extra limb testing program being used by researchers at the Swiss Federal

00:13 Institute of Technology.

00:14 It started as a proof of concept, allowing users to don a VR headset and experience doing

00:19 different tasks with a third arm, one controlled via the eyes and breathing.

00:23 And they have found that not only can users warm up to a fifth appendage, but they can

00:27 do so fairly effortlessly after a bit of practice.

00:30 This is one of the researchers, Julia Domenagiani, to explain.

00:34 Eventually we were able to implement the interface that we developed for the control of a real

00:38 robotic arm, and what was extremely interesting to see was that both trained participants

00:45 and naive participants performed similarly, again showing the intuitiveness of our control

00:52 interface.

00:53 They also conducted other experiments where participants controlled a computer mouse with

00:57 muscles behind the ears, ones left unused by evolution.

01:00 They say this could be a new way to empower those who can no longer use their limbs due

01:04 to illness or injuries.

01:05 But they're not stopping there.

01:07 They also believe this tech will be useful to everyone, giving individuals extraordinary

01:11 abilities, by literally giving them a hand.

01:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]

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