Open Arms

Newswise — Jonathan Kuniholm, a U.S. Marine engineer officer, was on a patrol in Iraq when an improvised explosive device severed his right arm below the elbow. For the past three years, he has been involved in getting better prosthetic arms into the world. He has worked with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Agency in its endeavor to make the next generation of robotic arms, but he sees a roadblock ahead for all future arm development. Kuniholm has devoted his life to ensuring that prosthetic-arm development becomes as open source as Firefox and Linux, by harnessing the enormous creative power of the world's gaming community and hobby roboticists. Kuniholm outlines the problem in the March issue of IEEE Spectrum and lays out his ideas for a solution.