J027044 開発途上国における制約要因を考慮した能動義手の開発

抄録

Prosthetic limbs are essential for amputees. A report from World Health Organization says eighty percent of amputees live in developing countries. Therefore, prosthetic limbs are to be developed under consideration of developing world conditions. In this paper, first we set requirements which reflect developing world conditions and propose an upper-limb prosthesis with using pneumatic artificial muscles as actuators. Second, we examine characteristics of the artificial muscle. As a result, we confirm that the maximum contraction displacement rate and the maximum contraction force of the artificial muscle are 35.4 % and 15.7 N, respectively. Next, we develop the prosthesis which consists of a hand and three artificial muscles and demonstrate that the prosthesis can grasp some objects with various shapes. The height, the width and the mass of the prosthesis are approximately 320 mm, 80 mm and 117 g, respectively. In addition, we demonstrate the prosthesis can grasp a mass of 500 g. Finally, we confirm that the prosthesis satisfies the requirements which we set.