Model-based control of individual finger movements for prosthetic hand function

Dimitra Blana, Antonie J. van den Bogert, Wendy M. Murray, Amartya Ganguly, Agamemnon Krasoulis, Kianoush Nazarpour, Edward K. Chadwick*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)
3 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Prosthetic devices for hand difference have advanced considerably in recent years, to the point where the mechanical dexterity of a state-of-the-art prosthetic hand approaches that of the natural hand. Control options for users, however, have not kept pace, meaning that the new devices are not used to their full potential. Promising developments in control technology reported in the literature have met with limited commercial and clinical success. We have previously described a biomechanical model of the hand that could be used for prosthesis control. The goal of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of this approach in terms of kinematic fidelity of model-predicted finger movement and the computational performance of the model. We show the performance of the model in replicating recorded hand and finger kinematics and find average correlations of 0.89 between modelled and recorded motions; we show that the computational performance of the simulations is fast enough to achieve real-time control with a robotic hand in the loop; and we describe the use of the model for controlling object gripping. Despite some limitations in accessing sufficient driving signals, the model performance shows promise as a controller for prosthetic hands when driven with recorded EMG signals. User-in-the-loop testing with amputees is necessary in future work to evaluate the suitability of available driving signals, and to examine translation of offline results to online performance.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)612-620
Number of pages9
JournalIEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering
Volume28
Issue number3
Early online date20 Jan 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2020

Bibliographical note

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M025977/1) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH5R01EB011615) in this research.

Keywords

  • biological system modelling
  • Biomechanics
  • biomechatronics
  • computer simulation
  • prosthetics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Model-based control of individual finger movements for prosthetic hand function'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this