'Robohand' developed for children who have lost a limb

A scientist has invented a child-sized robotic hand for youngsters who have lost a limb.

The pneumatic “soft prosthetic” hand, made from silicon, was created by Jan Fras, a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London, and can grip objects more effectively than hard plastic models.

Mr Fras’s supervisor, Professor Kaspar Althoefer, said: “These systems are pneumatic with air chambers in the miniature fingers.

"Each air chamber is connected to a tube, and then we can control the air that goes down those tubes into the fingers, which pressurises the fingers and they start to bend. That can then be controlled by the input device, a deep motion sensor that effectively replicates the movement of fingers.”

The design was unveiled at the TechXLR8 show at ExCel for London Tech Week.

The team is working on miniaturising the device’s hardware.