Nick Glass travels to Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. state of Maryland to take a look at the world's most advanced bionic arm.
So, this is your bionic arm?
Yes. We call this the modular prosthetic limb, or MPL.
This is the most sophisticated arm in the world. It can do virtually everything that your natural limb can do.
That's quite a claim.
Yes, it is. This arm has 26 individual joints that we can control.
Has there ever been an arm quite like it?
Never. So this arm is intended to work with your brain just like your natural arm works.
Johnny Matheny from West Virginia worked in the baking trade until he lost his left arm to cancer in 2008.
He heard about the bionic arm and signed up as soon as he could.
The bionic arm weighs much the same as a normal one, about nine pounds.
And it can mimic pretty much anything a normal hand can do, has almost the same dexterity,
26 joints, 100 sensors as we've been told, also 17 motors and a tiny computer built into the palm of the hand.
The effect is almost musical.
And, what's it like?
It's crazy. I mean, to actually be able to work a hand just like you had.
I mean, in 2008 when they took the arm, I never figured I'd ever have another actual hand.
I'd seen the hooks and I figured that's exactly what I'd be getting.
And then they come out with this and it's like, "Wow."
The arm has to be carefully programmed on computer, coded to respond to electrical impulses from Johnny's stump.
He thinks about moving his old arm.
You can see the impulses on the screen, little waves and squiggles.
The computer recognizes each pattern and makes the bionic arm move accordingly.
At the beginning, did Johnny believe it would work?
Well, you know, you believe it, but there's always, you know, that little bit of doubt that, you know, it's not going to work.
And when it did it was like, "Whoosh, yeah! I was ready. Give me more. Give me more."
It was time to have a go myself, to slip on a special glove with sensors linked up to the bionic arm.
How like my real arm and hand is this?
It can do virtually anything that you can do with your natural hand, OK.
You can move... yeah you can move your wrist. Right, it's very fluid.
My goodness, I could wave like the queen.
That's right. You can think about things like, you know, playing the piano eventually, doing very complex types of things.
You imagine someone with bionic arms playing the piano?
I think we'll get there someday. We're not there yet, but we'll get there.
Do you feel privileged?
Oh, yes, very privileged, very privileged to be able to do this, to show, you know, any upper amputee person, you know, what is... what they'll be able to do.
It's going to be... what's coming their way, it's not going to be, you know, the way of the future, the future is coming now.