We just loved the Six Million Dollar Man when it was on in the seventies, so it's good to see that scientists in Wales have the technology to rebuild astronauts involved in crashes.

Engineers working at Cardiff University firm MicroBridge Services have developed a micro-needle array sensor that could help amputees move artificial limbs using their brains.

The sensor, which contains 100 tiny needles, can be fitted to specific parts of the brain responsible for movement and can relay nerve impulses straight to false limbs in order for them to respond.

The engineers were contacted by Utah University to create the sensors in tungsten carbide for its bionic implant research project. The tungsten carbide is extremely tough and conducts electricity.

The needles are thin enough and long enough to penetrate the brain safely to pick up signals from the brain. These signals are then amplified and transmitted to the prosthetic limbs, producing movement.

Patients with the implant then learn to move the limb by generating the correct brain signal. According to Dr Robert Hoyle, from MicroBridge Services, the results are encouraging.

"The researchers in Utah have had patients controlling simple mechanical operations like gripping objects with the prosthetic limbs or operating a mouse," he told the BBC.

He said that the next challenge was to get more needls on the sensor as this would increase the control a patient has over their false limb.

In the long term, the researchers want to make a sensor that sits on the spinal column of somebody who has broken their neck so they could learn to move their own limbs again.