CONTROL AND SIGNAL PROCESSING CONCEPTS FOR A MULTIFUNCTIONAL HAND PROSTHESIS

Abstract

The loss of an arm means drastic reduction of live quality for affected people. To compensate the lost live quality myoelectric hand prostheses have been developed, that can be controlled by muscle contractions in the patients stump. Besides cosmetical aspects the acceptance of these hand prostheses depends on functionality, weight and user-friendliness. Concerning these items, international studies demonstrated, that about 30% of the users of functional prostheses are not using them regularly [1, 2]. Recently, the FZK (Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe) presented a light-weight artificial hand, that is able to move all finger joints independently [3]. To control this large variety of movement possibilities the principal task is to establish a control that has an extended functionality but is easy to handle. This paper presents: • a control concept that is able to perform various grip types using the same sensor configuration like commercial products and • a software platform to individually adapt necessary parameters to the users needs.