Design of prosthetic hand controlled by real-time EMG signal acquisition

The number of people suffering limb loss is continuously increasing due to wars, traffic and occupational accidents. Nearly a half of among these amputees suffer upper limb amputation, which makes them difficult in daily living activities. Thus the development of prosthetic hands has been more and more attracted by scientific society. Controllable prosthetic hands are now focused as they allow amputees to partially perform activities themselves, which are not the case for passive prosthetic hands. However, most research of electronic prosthetic hands is still under the prototype or sample. Moreover, commercial products are expensive, which are out of budget for many customers. In Vietnam, most amputees use no or only passive prosthetic devices for cosmetic purpose. Currently, no domestic commercial products of electronic prosthetic hands are available on the market. In this research, we develop a simple, cost-effective prosthetic hand that is directly controlled by electromyography (EMG) signals acquired from the body. The hardware and software are practically developed and optimized to enable smooth and reliable performance of the prosthetic hand. This promising result opens opportunities for fabricating low cost bionic hands by ourselves to ease the needs of Vietnamese amputees.