A control philosophy for prosthetic hands

Abstract

The majority of prosthetic hands available today make no pretense of approaching the versatility and functionality of the human hand. Available prostheses generally possess only one degree of freedom, which greatly reduces the manipulative ability of the device. Additional degrees of freedom are rarely added, because of the difficulty in controlling them naturally. The authors have developed a control philosophy based on minimum information transfer from the amputee and maximum local autonomy of the device. To test this philosophy, they have developed a graphical simulation of a five-fingered anthropomorphic device. The results presented show that this is a viable method for the control of a multifingered prosthetic hand.<>