ICHIKAWA BIONICS
“Ever wonder where all your prosthetics come from? That would be from the researchers at Ichikawa Bionics! We've teamed up with Karakura hospital to help bring prosthesis and bionics into the future with advanced technology yet to be seen anywhere else in the world!”
WHAT IS ICHIKAWA BIONICS?
Ichikawa Bionics is the passion project and brain child of Mikazuki Ichikawa, a graduate from Tohoku University in Sendai. Members of the research group aim to advance prosthetics and bionics into a new age where they’re cheaper and easier to use, but like all new tech, it has to be tested. What better training ground is there than Karakura?
In late 2018 as Karakura’s hospital began experiencing a higher demand for prosthetics, Ichikawa herself reached out to propose a deal. As long as the hospital could offer “test subjects” for her group’s technology, they could have access for a set price of 75,000JPY. If there was any price outside of this range, her grandfather, Tenzo Ichikawa, would cover them with his leftover money from when he was hospital director.
Currently, almost all prosthetics and bionics are sold to the citizens of Karakura purchase these tools from the hospital with no additional costs for the surgery.
WHAT ARE THEY MADE OF? HOW DOES IT WORK?
You may be asking yourself how these things are actually made. How is it that so many people in this town can have such advanced products that look realistic and properly work even in water. Inside of the lab, 3D printers are used to build exact replicas of one’s missing limb. In order to do so, different materials including a mix of carbon fiber and silicone, which keeps the prosthetic lightweight, and polyethylene to allow waterproof qualities and brings its own comfort with how flexible it is. Then the mixture is ran over a mold of the limb. Multiple steps are taken to ensure that the product is the best of its kind and can allow maximum movement. Electrode sensors are placed on the inside of the prosthetic socket joint so that when attached to the body, it can read muscle contracts and send signals for the prosthetic limb to move.
All prosthesis are equipped with 2 nickel-cadmium batteries that can hold charges capable of lasting days at a time with the batteries themselves lasting years at a time. However, it is advised to get them checked annually to prevent any malfunction.
PROSTHETIC MODELS:
All prosthetic limbs work off of the same principal, two computers talking to one another. The computer on the ‘input’ side where the stump is reads the body’s electric signals and tells the ‘output’ where and how to move. It’s much like how you’d microchip a cat and a scanner can read that chip, except it’s your brain waves!
ABOUT THE EYES...
MODEL: OCULAR MOTION VERSION I
After a fundraising campaign by Karakura’s Government, funding has been poured into the creation of a prosthetic eye that can restore the ability to see! Or so was the marketing campaign…
In joint research with Satoshi Tokei, Ichikawa Bionics has released its first wave of visual prostheses to Karakura citizens, functioning as synthetic retinas. These devices consist of two primary components: a surgically-implanted receiver chip and an outer ocular prosthetic that contains a digital receptor similar functionally to a camera. The receptor translates basic visual information into code and sends it to the receiver chip, which converts the information into electrical impulses designed to mimic signals sent along the optic nerve by rods.
While this technology is miraculous to many, there are two glaring limitations to these prostheses: firstly, they require that the patient's optic nerve and preexisting retinal cells remain functionally intact. They cannot restore vision to those who have never been able to see.
Secondarily, due to the chip’s electrical imitation of rod signals, the prostheses only provide scotopic vision. This range of sight is starkly similar to what we perceive in low light conditions, lacking color or fine-tuned detail. An implant that can mimic the behavior of cones, rods’ complementary photoreceptor cells capable of providing visual precision, have not yet been fully developed as a result of their communicative complexity. So long as funding continues, Ichikawa Bionics ensures further development on this project, possibly to allow future models of it to see in full color rather than in black and white.
Credit: cloud_divider, simonblackquill