Development of a 5 DOF prosthetic arm for above elbow amputees

Recent progress in biomechatronics technology brings a lot of benefit to increase the mobility of above elbow (AE) amputees in their daily life activities. A prosthetic arm is used to compensate for the lost functions of the AE amputees absent arm. A number of commercial prosthetic arm have been developed since last few decades. However, many amputees have not used them due to the discrepancy between their expectations and the reality. One of the main factors that cause the loss of interest in current commercial prosthetic arm is the lack of desired DOF (degree of freedom) that results unnatural arm motion. In this paper, a 5 DOF externally powered prosthetic arm for AE amputees is proposed to increase their mobility in daily life activities. The proposed prosthesis is designed to generate natural human like arm motion while performing a daily life task. This paper summarizes the design and controllability of the proposed prosthesis.