How to design an anthropomorphic hand with a few actuators to replicate the grasping functions of the human hand is still a challenging problem. This paper aims to develop a general theory for designing the anthropomorphic hand and endowing the designed hand with natural grasping functions. A grasping experimental paradigm was set up for analyzing the grasping mechanism of the human hand in daily living. The movement relationship among joints in a digit, among digits in the human hand, and the postural synergic characteristic of the fingers were studied during the grasping. The design principle of the anthropomorphic mechanical digit that can reproduce the digit grasping movement of the human hand was developed. The design theory of the kinematic transmission mechanism that can be embedded into the palm of the anthropomorphic hand to reproduce the postural synergic characteristic of the fingers by using a limited number of actuators is proposed. The design method of the anthropomorphic hand for replicating human grasping functions was formulated. Grasping experiments are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed design method of the anthropomorphic hand.

Design and Implementation of an Anthropomorphic Hand for Replicating Human Grasping Functions

The invention discloses an under-actuated prosthetic hand capable of reproducing a hand grasping function; the under-actuated prosthetic hand is provided with an interphalangeal drive mechanism and a thumb drive mechanism in a palm; finger bodies take pulleys as main parts, and transmission mechanisms arranged in fingers are sequentially and alternately wound on all the pulleys of the fingers by steel wire ropes; joints in the fingers are in flexible coupling by elastic components; the interphalangeal drive mechanism adopts two motors to drive four fingers and multiple degrees of freedom of the fingers in a synergetic way; a thumb body takes a pulley as a main part, the transmission mechanisms in the finger bodies take transmission ropes as transmission mediums, the interphalangeal drive mechanism adopts a gear component for transmission matching, and the four degrees of freedom of the thumb can be controlled by two motors. After the under-actuated prosthetic hand is adopted, self-adaptive grasping of various objects can be accurately completed, and the rich grasping operation function of a human hand can be reproduced; the under-actuated prosthetic hand has the characteristics of being compact in structure, smaller in size, lighter in weight, convenient to control, accurate in grasping action, and the like.

Under-actuated prosthetic hand capable of reproducing hand grasping function

Thrust and Swimming Speed Analysis of Fish Robot with Non-uniform Flexible Tail

On Adaptive Grasp with Underactuated Anthropomorphic Hands

Hands-on design projects are widely used in engineering curricula to improve hardware/software skills, develop design mindsets, and tie real-world problems to engineering curricula with an eye toward increased student engagement and retention. In Fall 2018, Kansas State University (KSU) accepted its first cadre of incoming freshmen into a new Biomedical Engineering (BME) degree program. In an effort to increase the effectiveness of the program’s design courses, which will be offered annually to students of various ages beginning in Fall 2020, the authors performed a search of recent engineering education literature related to the inclusion of design projects in undergraduate BME curricula, focusing on (a) projects that could be reasonably incorporated into courses that support undergraduate students with little-to-no design experience, (b) efforts that map to the emphasis areas for this new BME program, (c) student-learning assessment techniques that have proved useful in these hands-on contexts, and (d) projects that would make interesting recruiting examples for high school students considering such a program. The overall goal of this work is to allow lessons learned from these earlier efforts to inform projects offered as part of this new BME curriculum. This paper presents (1) an overview of this new curriculum, (2) the skillsets that this new BME program intentionally addresses and the courses that will support that skillset development, (3) BME project-based efforts described in the literature that relate thematically to the emphasis areas in this curriculum, (4) assessment methods that have appeared useful when applied to such projects, and (5) suitable categories of starter projects for this new curriculum, including those that can be prototyped prior to the Fall 2020/2021 onset of the initial junior/senior-level design sequences.

A Survey of Biomedical Design Projects to Inform Skill Development in a New Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Curriculum

The invention provides an under-actuated artificial limb hand which comprises a palm, a thumb and four fingers, wherein the fingers are composed of finger main bodies and driving mechanisms in the finger main bodies; the thumb is composed of a thumb main body and a driving mechanism in the thumb main body; a finger-web driving mechanism and a thumb driving mechanism are arranged in the palm; pulleys are taken as the main parts of the finger main bodies; tensioning ropes and releasing ropes are adopted by the driving mechanisms in the fingers and are alternately wound on the pulleys of the fingers; a single motor is adopted by the finger-web driving mechanism for driving two fingers and multiple degrees of freedom; a pulley is taken as the main part of the thumb main body; driving ropes are used as driving mediums by the driving mechanisms in the finger main bodies: a slot wheel component, a gear component and a crank block component are adopted for coordinately driving by the finger-web driving mechanism, so that the control of the single motor on the multiple degrees of freedom of the thumb is realized According to the under-actuated artificial limb hand, the fingers, the thumb and the driving mechanisms thereof form an under-actuated mechanism for finishing the enveloping self-adaption capture for various articles, the structure is simple, the volume is small, the weight is light and the under-actuated artificial limb hand is attractive and practical

Under-actuated artificial limb hand

Because hand is often used for grasping, developing a design of prosthetic hands, particularly light and compact underactuated anthropomorphic transradial prostheses for reproducing human hand complex grasping is crucial for upper-limb amputees. Obviously, the less the number of actuators is, the worse the anthropomorphic motion capability of the prosthetic hands will be. This paper aims to design a transmission mechanism with few motors actuating fingers which could serve the relatively accurate grasp movement of a human hand and has the potential to be embedded in a palm including the motors. We start with establishing an index for evaluating the anthropomorphic motion capability of a prosthetic hand. Based on the optimization of this index, we determine the number of actuators in fingers and the transmission relationship between the actuators and the metacarpophalangeal(MCP) joints. Then, a new design method to mechanically implement the transmission relationship based on a novel decomposition of transmission matrix is proposed in this paper. Utilizing this method, we obtained the final mechanical structure of a new prosthetic hand.

Zhang Qiaofei

Papers

Under-actuated prosthetic hand capable of reproducing hand grasping function

Under-actuated artificial limb hand

A novel design method of anthropomorphic prosthetic hands for reproducing human hand grasping.

Input-lacking multimode-output prosthetic hand driving mechanism