Well thought out socket designs and careful consideration of residual limb presentation set the stage for patient success—maximizing range of motion, providing stability throughout daily activities, and comfortably distributing the forces exerted on the residual limb during movement and suspension. In contrast, poor socket design will often drive people to abandon the prosthesis because many pa...

This paper presents an underactuated artificial hand intended for functional replacement of the natural hand in upper limb amputees. The natural hand has three basic functionalities: grasping, manipulation and exploration. To accomplish the goal of restoring these capabilities by implanting an artificial hand, two fundamental steps are necessary: to develop an artificial hand equipped with arti...

In this paper we illustrate the architecture and the main features of a bio-inspired control system employed to govern an anthropomorphic artificial Arm. The manipulation system we developed was designed starting from a deeply study of the human limb from the anatomical, physiological and neurological point of view. In accordance with the general view of the Biorobotics field we try to replicat...

In this paper we present our bio-mimetic artificial arm and the simulation results on its low level control system. In accordance with the general view of the Biorobotics field we try to replicate the structure and the functionalities of the natural limb. The control system is organized in a hierarchical way, the low level control reproduces the human spinal reflexes and the high level control ...

Despite the technological progress in robotics, mechatronic limbs still lack functionality, reliability and comfort. This work builds upon osseointegration and implanted neuromuscular interfaces for the realization of an embedded system for artificial upper limb control. The controller allows for bioelectric signals acquisition, processing, decoding and prosthetic control. It includes a neurost...

An analysis of 200 patients with congenital limb deficiency who attended the Artificial Limb Centre, Pune from January 1984 to April 1990 is presented. This group is representative of the congenital limb deficient population of the country. The commonest deficiencies were transverse phalangeal total/partial deficiency and transverse forearm partial deficiency (below elbow) in upper limbs, where...

INTRODUCTION Severe Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) causes ventilatory insufficiency and the need for prolonged artificial ventilation. Under circumstances where medical care for patients with severe GBS is required in a resource-limited institution, identifying initial clinical presentations in GBS patients that can predict respiratory insufficiency and the need for prolonged mechanical ventilat...

The rich variety of human upper limb movements requires an extraordinary coordination of different joints according to specific spatio-temporal patterns. However, unvealing these motor schemes is a challenging task. Principal components have been often used for analogous purposes, but such an approach relies on hypothesis of temporal uncorrelation of upper limb poses in time. To overcome these ...

In this paper a waist rehabilitation robot driven by cables and pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) has been conceptualized and designed. In the process of mechanism design, the human body structure, the waist movement characteristics, and the actuators' driving characteristics are the main considerable factors to make the hybrid-driven waist rehabilitation robot (HWRR) cost-effective, safe, fl...

Asymmetric leg function is often an undesired side-effect in artificial legged systems and may reflect functional deficits or variations in the mechanical construction. It can also be found in legged locomotion in humans and animals such as after an accident or in specific gait patterns. So far, it is not clear to what extent differences in the leg function of contralateral limbs can be tolerat...