( PopSci.com ) -- More than 130 veterans of the Iraq war now face the daunting challenge of learning to live with a missing arm . To make that transition easier , the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , or Darpa , has launched a $ 55-million project that pools the efforts of prosthetics experts nationwide to create a thought-controlled bionic arm that duplicates the functions of a natural limb . The Darpa arm must not only perform like the real thing but resemble it too . If all goes well , by 2009 the agency will petition the Food and Drug Administration to put the arm through clinical trials . This summer the team hit a critical milestone when it finished Proto 2 , a thought-controlled mechanical arm -- complete with hand and articulated fingers -- that can perform 25 joint motions . This dexterity approaches that of a native arm , which can make 30 motions , and trumps the previously most agile bionic arm , the Proto 1 , which could bend at the elbow , rotate its wrist and shoulder , and open and close its fingers . A person wearing a Proto 2 could conceivably play the piano . The next steps are to shrink the battery , develop more-efficient motors , and refine the bulky electrodes used to read electrical signals in muscles . As for making actual music , the wearer is on his own . How it works : . Copyright © 2009 Popular Science .
NASA launches $ 55-million project to create a thought - controlled bionic arm . The arm will duplicate the functions of a natural arm . Proto 2 thought - controlled mechanical arm can perform 25 joint motions . A person with a Proto 2 can conceivably play the piano .