Prosthesis Hand Design - Part I: Virtual Hand Simulator

Abstract

Advances in bioengineering have led to increasingly sophisticated prosthetic devices for amputees and paralyzed individuals. In this work, a virtual human hand (VHH) is designed for prosthesis use and described in details. EMG-driven VHH is to be made of open source code, low cost, modular and flexible in structure. The custom-made nature of VHH allows us to refine and develop it further to mimic human hand in a greater degree. Commercial prostheses manufacturers readily use EMG-based virtual hand simulator to train the limb deficit people before a real prostheses is being adapted to them. Therefore, VHH is to design to mimic a human hand in terms of appearence and motion dynamic. The developed VHH will be used a part of EMG-based hand simulator in future works. ©2009 IEEE.