Design and control of BLDC motor for prosthetic limb applications

Now a days, BLDC motors are widely used in prosthetic limb applications due to various advantages such as small size and weight, excellent controllability, high torque to weight ratio etc. Due to various diseases, accidents, and congenital defects etc., there is an increasing rate of demand for prosthetic devices. Myoelectric signals that are generated naturally by human muscles are used to control a prosthetic limb. Electromyogram signals from different people are extracted for flexion and extension of elbow and the analysis of an EMG signal help to detect the intention for a particular movement of elbow. A BLDC motor for prosthetic hand is designed in MAXWELL. Modeling of slotted and slotless BLDC motors have done in MATLAB-SIMULINK. EMG signals for flexion and extension of elbow is extracted and processed, and classified using artificial neural network and an entire prosthetic hand drive system is simulated in SIMULINK and the performance comparison of slotted and slotless motor in this application is analyzed.