Development and Evaluation of a Simplified Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand Realizing Basic Grasp Function in ADL

Abstract

Myoelectric prosthetic hands are desired by those who have lost their hands not only for decoration but also for the functions to help them with their activities of daily living (ADL). The prosthetic robotic hands for daily use should be little stressful to the user by weight reduction, and be fault-tolerant. It is thus required to simplify the prosthetic robotic hand while maintaining its grasp function. The aim of this study is therefore to develop a simplified prosthetic hand to realize the most important hand motions in ADL by trading off the cost and performance. This paper reports the development of a two degree-of-freedom prosthetic hand with two motors to drive and the carpometacarpal joint of the thumb and the interlocked meta phalangeal joints of the other four fingers. In order to optimize the structure of the fingers, the model of the prosthetic hand was proposed and 7 hands with different structural parameters were manufactured and tested in a pick-and-place experiment with objects of daily use. The proper parameters suggest by correspondence analysis were adopted to design the prosthetic hand for a subject with upper limb amputation. The pick-and-place experiment by the subject showed the applicability of the structure and the effect of weight reduction.