So many iconic characters in science fiction and comics have bionic limbs. From the Winter Soldier to Luke Skywalker and Imperator Furiosa.
But what if bionic limbs existed outside of science fiction and comics? Well, they do.
San Diego-based tech company PSYONIC has created a touch-sensing bionic prosthetic hand that looks like it came straight from a comic strip.
They call it the Ability Hand.
It stands out from normal prosthetics because it can provide tactile sensations to the user.
It’s made of carbon fiber and silicon, making it lightweight and durable. PSYONIC CEO and founder Aadeel Akhtar said it has 32 grip configurations giving users flexibility.
“It can even switch between different grips,” Akhtar said. “So if I open the hand twice, I can do a pinch. For example, if I'm at a rock concert, you know, you can, rock on. And then our user favorite is the finger wave where you can see all the fingers move, moving.”
Users of the Ability Hand control it with their muscles and sensors in the fingertips that can relay touch and pressure information to the user, so they can do delicate tasks like crack an egg or feed a baby.
Akhtar and a few Ability Hand users will be at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday and Friday to show the device off and participate in a panel discussion about what it’s like living with a bionic limb.
PSYONIC’s origin story
Akhtar said he started thinking about prosthetics when he was seven years old while on a trip to Pakistan, where his parents are from. Akhtar recalls seeing a girl around his age missing a leg.
“That's the first time I met someone with a limb difference. She was my age, missing her right leg and using a tree branch as a crutch,” he said. “So it inspired me to go into this field, and it inspired me to create a company called PSYONIC that develops advanced bionic limbs that are affordable for both humans and robots.”
Fast forward to the summer of 2014. While working on his Ph.D. Akhtar and others traveled to Quito, Ecuador to work with the Range of Motion Project, a nonprofit that brings high-quality prosthetic care to underserved people. In Quito, Akhtar met Juan Suquillo, an Ecuadorian man who had lost his arm in a landmine explosion.
Akhtar and his colleagues worked with Juan for two weeks and fit him with one of the first iterations of what would become the Ability Hand.
“Juan was able to make a pinch with his left hand for the first time in 35 years and the hand, at the time, it was three times the size of an average adult human hand,” Akhtar said. “It had wires going everywhere, plugging into breadboards, power supplies, the wall. But despite that, Juan said in front of international news stations, that he felt as though a part of him had come back.”
That was when Akhtar knew he needed to pursue the idea further.
“If we want everyone to feel the exact same way that Juan did, we had to commercialize the technology, and that's when PSYONIC was born,” he said.
Now, PSYONIC has around 150 Ability Hand users and has deployed the technology to around 50 robots, according to Akhtar.
Coming to a panel near you
This is the second year PSYONIC has hosted a panel at San Diego Comic-Con. Last year, Akhtar and five Ability Hand users shared their experiences living with a bionic prosthetic hand.
This year, Akhtar is building an even bigger team, kind of like Director Fury of the Avengers. San Diego Comic-Con 2024 will see the most Ability Hand users in the same room ever, he said.
Attendees can expect to learn more about living with bionic limbs as well as the functionality of the Ability Hand.
“A lot of people don't know how they actually work in real life and how functional they are for people with limb differences,” Akhtar said. “And so we kind of wanted to show the world, like,' hey, this is how cool bionic limbs are in real life.' They're real, and this is what our users can do with it. These are their challenges. These are their limitations. But these are also some of the amazing things that they can do.”
Akhtar and the panelists will also talk about the future of this technology.
"Seeing a bionic hand in real life, I think, is pretty compelling in and of itself,” he said. “It's kind of like science fiction coming to reality. Right? And I think that's one of the things that is so special about our panel is that you really get to see what the world is really like when it comes to this kind of technology and the future of it.”
The panel is Thursday, July 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Room 24ABC.
