Development of a low-cost anthropomorphic manipulator for commercial usage

In recent times there is a prevalence in amputations in the developing world due to lack of proper medical treatment of diseases & injuries sustained in natural disasters or war; creating a need for an optimal solution that is technically sound and is affordable. This paper discusses the available solutions in the market and then proposes a new design for prosthetic hands, incorporating the morphological features of the actual human hand. Each finger, actuated by a slider mechanism, has a single degree of freedom. While the thumb design utilizes worm gear driven mechanisms to feature a double degree of freedom. The morphology of the developed device is that of the adult male human right hand. The motors for actuation are installed inside the palm of the hand while the overall weight of the prosthetic device is 453 g. The control is generated by the forward kinematics model assessing the relation between the slider position and the rotation angles of the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joints of the individual fingers. A feedback control loop provides the adaptive grip. The developed prosthesis design can be used to interface with either an EMG or EEG-based control scheme.