"Frank": World’s first complete bionic man

October 22, 2013

What is Frank (Frankenstein) ?

Screenshot_2 Researchers from Zurich (Switzerland) have revealed the world’s first walking, talking bionic man called Frank, short for Frankenstein
Researchers have engineered the world’s first robot human or Bionic man made entirely of prosthetic parts. It can walk, talk and has a beating heart. The robot has been developed by Roboticists Rich Walker and Matthew Godden of Shadow Robot Co in England.
To develop the Bionic man, scientists assembled prosthetic body parts and artificial organs donated by laboratories around the world.

Key features of the complete Bionic Man Frank (Frankenstein):

6 feet tall
Fully functioning circulatory system
Beating heart and lungs
28 artificial body parts and synthetic organs.
Artificial organs including an artificial heart, blood, lungs (and windpipe), pancreas, spleen, kidney and functional circulatory system.
Fitted with a cochlear implant, speech recognition and speech production systems.
Equipped with a sophisticated chatbot programme that can talk.
Robotic ankles and feet enable it to move
Face is made of silicone and is a replica of Dr Meyer’s
Fitted with 200 processors
70 circuit boards and 26 individual motors
Wears a robotic exoskeleton dubbed Rex to support its prosthetics legs.
However, the robot human lacks a few organs including liver, stomach and intestines, which are too complex to replicate in a lab.
Brain can imitate certain functions of the human brain and has a retinal prosthesis.
Development cost: nearly $1 million.
Frank (short for Frankenstein) has been named after Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel