MULTIFUNCTION PROSTHESIS CONTROL USING IMPLANTED MYOELECTRIC SENSORS (IMES)

Abstract

Persons with recent hand amputations expect modern hand prostheses to function like intact hands. Current stateof- the-art electric prosthetic hands are generally single degree-of-freedom (opening and closing) devices that are controlled using only two muscle signals. As a result, most state-of-the-art devices fail to meet user’s expectations and tend to be under-utilized or rejected. [2]. In this paper we describe the development of implantable myoelectric sensors (IMES) that will allow us to record myoelectric signals from up to 32 muscle sites. Most of the eighteen extrinsic muscles of the hand remain intact following hand amputation. The goal of this work is to develop the means to control for a multi-degree-of-freedom prosthetic hand that is capable of true dexterous manipulation. The development of IMES allows us to create many more control sources than has been possible in the past, greatly increasing the number of degrees-of-freedom we can control in a prosthetic system.