Contents I. Introduction
During the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, “at least 251,102 people have been killed and 532,715 people have been seriously wounded” [1]. Further, in the United States, the Amputee Coalition of America (ACA) [2] reports that there are approximately 1.9 million people living with limb loss, due to combat operations (such as conflicts, wars etc.), and non-combat operations such as accidents, or birth defects. According to a study of the 1996 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) published by Vital and Health Statistics [3], it is estimated that one out of every 200 people in the U.S. has had an amputation. In other words, about one in every 2,000 new born babies will have limb deficiency and over 3,000 people lose a limb every week in America. By the year 2050, the projected number of Americans living with limb amputation will become 3.6 million [4]. In the past several decades, prosthetic hands have been developed by various researchers in the field [5]–[9], but reproducing the human hand in all its various functions, appearance, visibility, and weight is still a challenging task [5].
