Modeling and Simulation of a Three-Joint Prosthetic Finger Actuated by Remaining Functional Natural Fingers: A Bond Graph Approach

This paper addresses issues pertaining to hand prostheses with functional finger joints actuated by remaining natural fingers. These offer improved options for rehabilitation of hand impairments with partial disabilities. A prosthetic finger mechanism with three joints, offering greater dexterity and based on the like-unlike configuration presented earlier is used to realize the implementation of the abstract concept of Opposition Space. A methodology for modeling and simulating the dynamics of a three-joint prosthetic finger actuated by remaining natural finger joints based on the string-tube mechanism using multibond graph is presented here. The numerical simulation of the Bond graph model is performed using MATLAB and SCILAB. 3D animation of the simulated results performed in the open source VRML environment has been used to obtain a better understanding through visualization.