Development and Control of a Multigrasp Myoelectric Hand Prosthesis by Skyler

This paper presents an anthropomorphic prototype hand prosthesis that is intended for use with a multiple channel myoelectric interface. The hand contains 16 joints, which are differentially driven by a set of five independent actuators. The hand prototype was designed with the minimum number of independent actuators required to provide a set of eight canonical hand postures. This paper describes the design of the prosthesis prototype, demonstrates the hand in the desired eight canonical postures, and experimentally characterizes the force and speed capability of the device. A video is included in the supplemental material that also illustrates the functionality and performance of the hand. Manuscript 2 (Chapter 3): Design of a Multigrasp Transradial Prostheses, Tuomas E. Wiste, Skyler A. Dalley, H. Atakan Varol, and Michael Goldfarb Abstract: This paper describes the design and performance of a new prosthetic hand capable of multiple grasp configurations, and capable of fingertip forces and speeds comparable to those used by healthy subjects in typical activities of daily living. The hand incorporates four motor units within the palm, which together drive sixteen joints through tendon actuation. Each motor unit consists of a brushless motor that drives one or more tendons through a custom two-way clutch and pulley assembly. After presenting the design of the prosthesis, the paper presents a characterization of the hand’s performance. This includes its ability to provide eight grasp postures (but where, due to reduced actuation, digits IV and V move with digit III in the tripod grasp), as well as its ability to provide fingertip forces and finger speeds comparable to those described in the biomechanics literature corresponding to activities of daily living. Manuscript 3 (Chapter 4): A Method for the Control of Multigrasp Myoelectric Prosthetic Hands, Skyler A. Dalley, Huseyin Atakan Varol, and Michael Goldfarb Abstract: This paper presents the design and preliminary experimental validation of a multigrasp myoelectric controller. The described method enables direct and proportional control of multigrasp prosthetic hand motion among nine characteristic postures using two surface EMG electrodes. To assess the efficacy of the control method, five non-amputee subjects utilized the multigrasp myoelectric controller to command the motion of a virtual prosthesis between random sequences of target hand postures in a series of experimental trials. For comparison, the same subjects also utilized a data glove, worn on their native hand, to command the motion of the virtual prosthesis for similar sequences of target postures during each trial. The time required to transition from posture to posture and the percentage of correctly completed transitions were evaluated to characterize the ability to control the virtual prosthesis using each method. The average overall transition times across all subjects were found to be 1.49 and 0.81 seconds for