Control Philosophy for a Simulated Prosthetic Hand

摘要

Multifingered robot hands can approximate human hand functionality, and it is possible to consider their use in prosthetics. The Belgrade/USC robot hand is used as a prototype prosthetic hand in order to evaluate a system, PRESHAPE, that translates user commands into motor signals using the virtual finger concept. This paper describes the control philosophy of PRESHAPE and presents simulation results. BACKGROUND The human hand is a complex and versatile system, both structurally and functionally. It is capable of shaping into a variety of forms, each specialized for the task at hand. For prehensile tasks, the hand preshapes into a posture suitable to grasp the object for the given task, and then encloses the object [Jeannerod 1981]. Prosthetic hands, which ideally should serve the wearer naturally, are largely an elusive dream, and most amputees are fitted with a dual hook. Recently, where cost and complexity have not been as large a constraint as in prosthetics, multifingered sensor...