A Robotic Prosthetic Hand for Computer Mouse Operations

Abstract

Individuals with upper limb amputation face significant difficulty in operating standard computer peripherals with their prostheses, particularly the mouse, due to the constraints imposed by current prosthetic hand designs and the irregular shape of the computer mouse. This work introduces a soft myoelectric prosthesis system for operating different physical computer mouses. The proposed prosthesis has two tendon-driven soft fingers and three fin-ray fingers. It enables an enveloping grasp of the computer mouse and facilitates diverse finger-based clicking and scrolling operations. In addition, a mapping between the hand movements (myoelectric signals) and the computer mouse operations is created by combining a neural network classifier and a post-processing algorithm. Herein, the proposed system's performance is evaluated through a series of cursor control tasks involving both the able-bodied and amputee participants. In the experimental results, it is shown that the proposed soft prosthesis system effectively enables individuals with transradial amputation to operate a physical computer mouse using their residual limbs. Compared to a traditional cursor control method based on surface electromyography, the participants exhibit improved task performance (shorter completion time and higher throughput) and improved user experience (reduced muscle use and higher questionnaire scores).