Upper-limb prosthetics control

The major factors limiting prosAeses to tools are practical ones due to the severe weight, power, and size constraints of hand/atm systems as well as the difficulty in finding a sufficient number of appropriate control sources to control the requisite number of degrees of freedom. Of these, it is the lack of independent control sources that imposes the most severe impediment to the development of today s prosthetic hand/atm systems. As a result, upper-limb prosthetics research is somewhat dominated by considerations of control. Still, the importance of better actuators and better multifunctional mechanisms must not be ignored. Control is useless if effective hand and arm mechatusms are not available. 

Although the physical design constraints of weight, volume, and power are severe, they are not so severe that multifunctional arms and hands cannot be built that would be of acceptable weight and size. The real problem is, as has been alluded to before, the issue of how to interface a multifunctional arm or hand to an amputee in a meaningful way. It is for this reason that upper-limb prosthetics is often dominated by consideration of control. That is, how can the prosthesis be controlled in such a fashion that it will be an aid rather than a burden to the user ... 

Touch Bionics is a leading developer of advanced upper-limb prosthetics (ULP). One of the two products now commercially available from this company, are the i-LIMB Hand , is a first to market prosthetic device with five individually powered digits[4]. This artificial limb looks and acts like a real human hand and represents a generational advance in bionics and patient care. The i-LIMB Hand is controlled by a unique, highly intuitive control system that uses a traditional two-input Myoelectric (muscle signal) to open and close the hand s [5],... 

Michael, J. W. (1986). Upper-limb powered components and controls current concepts. Clinical Prosthetics and Orthotics, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 66-77. 

A multichannel neural-recording system is used in neuroscience experiments to study complex neural networks of animals in their natural environments [130]. It is also a critical component in brain-computer interface used for cortical-controlled neural prosthetics, which has a wide range of applications such as upper and lower limb prostheses [131-134], bladder and bowel movement control for spinal cord injury (SCI) patients [135-136], respiration control for SCI patients [137], and hand grasping function restoration [138]. 

---