A Proposed Software Framework for Studying the Grasp Stability of Underactuated Fingers

A Toolbox for the Analysis of the Grasp Stability of Underactuated Fingers

“…A functional scheme of the designed mechanism is shown in Figure 1, while a more in-depth analysis of the proposed mechanism can be found in [10,11]. This paper extends the study, preliminary presented by the authors in [12], on the contact forces generated by the underactuated fingers during enveloping grasps. The overall goal is to optimize their features by maximizing the contact conditions for which a stable grasp can be achieved.…”

“…where I n is the identity matrix of dimension n, and T * is now a rectangular matrix of dimensions (n + 1) × n. Equation (9) in this case becomes: (12) and the forces obtained are the same calculated in absence of the base joint spring, except for f 1 , which contains the additional term T 1 1 k 1 + η 1 (and this holds for any number of phalanges). This result represents the most general one, since if T 1 = 0 also f 1 equals the one previously obtained.…”

Hardware design and software development of a motion control and driving system for transradial prosthesis based on a wireless myoelectric armband

“…The Arduino Micro board has been chosen due to its excellent features, which are particularly suitable for the application developed in this research work: it is light and small, so it can be easily integrated inside the prosthesis, keeping its weight and dimensions contained; it also allows us to easily perform all the tasks required for the correct operation of the device and its power consumption is very low, thus increasing the battery life. In particular, its principal features are the following: working voltage of 5 V, supply voltage in the range [7][8][9][10][11][12] V, 20 I/O digital pins, 7 pulse-width modulation (PWM) pins, 12 analogue input pins, 32 kB of flash memory, 2.5 kB of SRAM, 1 kB of EPROM memory, and clock frequency of 16 MHz. In this research work, the Arduino Micro board, powered with 7.2 V by means of the lithium battery, is provided of two voltage regulators: one of them provides a 5 VDC output, while the second one provides a 3.3 VDC output; both are used to feed the sensors and the implemented low-power electronic boards (Fig.…”

“…Thanks to the mechanism configuration, the gears exert constant forces, which are independent from the fingers kinematic position. The prosthesis design has been optimised by using a properly designed software which manages several geometric, kinematic, and dynamic parameters, in order to optimise the grasp-state space, thus obtaining the most stable fingers workspace [10][11][12].…”