Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand

Low-Cost Prosthethic Hand with Myoelectric Control

Summary: The cost burden of many commercial prosthetics is unfortunately too much for many amputees to endure. For my senior design project, we decided to design a low-cost prosthetic hand with a myoelectric system for a lifelike experience. The hand has an onboard micro controller unit (MCU) which implements a control algorithm for the six motor drivers within the hand. After training the myoelectric system which is worn on the limb, the user flexes their muscles for a desired hand orientation and the state is conveyed to the hand for the onboard MCU to bring the system to its desired orientation. The internal gearing system within the hand was designed to avoid motor idling when a force is applied. The hand was successfully tested on an amputee and the work eventually evolved into a start-up.


Gallery

3D CAD

I was the mechanical design lead for the project and designed most of the system in ProEngineer. I also had a hand in the electronic system design and the motor control system.

Two Degree of Freedom Thumb

The thumb was designed with two drive systems that allowed more complex gripping patterns.

Gear System

I designed an energy-efficient worm gear drive system that reduced the need for idling motors when pressure is applied.

Awards

Our project won the Innovation Trophy Challenge and was also awarded the Senior Design Outstanding Acheivement Award


Demo