BioMechatronic Design and Control of an Anthropomorphic Artificial Hand for Prosthetics and Robotic Applications

The paper proposes a biomechatronic approach to the design of an anthropomorphic artificial hand. The hand is conceived to be applied to prosthetics and biomedical robotics; hence, anthropomorphism is a fundamental requirement to be addressed both in the physical aspect and in the functional behavior. As regards the hand mechanics, a cable-driven underactuation is proposed in order to enlighten the structure, allow anthropomorphic self-adaptation to the object to be grasped, and simplify the control. Two simple PD control systems are formulated and evaluated in a common task of grasping a cylindrical object. The reference input for the control is derived from data on human subjects performing the same task and extracted by the literature. The paper reports simulation results about the comparison with the human case when both control systems are used to close the finger, so to derive specific indications for the improvement of the hand design