State-of-the-Art Method in Prosthetic Hand Design: A Review

Abstract

Human limb amputation can be caused due to congenital disabilities, accidents, and certain diseases. Amputation caused by occupational accidents is a frequent occurrence in developing countries. Meanwhile, amputation caused by certain diseases such as diabetes Miletus is also the leading cause. The need for prosthetic hand is increasing along with the increase in those two factors. Several researchers have developed prosthetic hands with advantages and disadvantages. Research on prosthetic hands, which are useful, low power, and low cost, is still a major issue. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the various designs of prosthetic hands, specifically on the sensor, control, and actuator systems. This paper collected several references from proceedings and journals related to the design of the prosthetic hand. The results show that the EMG signal is widely used by some researchers in controlling prosthetic hands compared to other sensors, following the force-sensitive resistor (FSR) sensor. To control prosthetic hands, some researchers used a threshold system with a value of 20% of the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC), and several other researchers used a pattern recognition model based on the EMG signal feature. Moreover, In the mechanical part, the open-source prosthetic hand model is more widely used than the fabricate prosthetic hand. This is due to the cost required in the prosthetic hand design is cheaper than a fabricated one. The results of this review are expected to provide a recommendation to researchers in the development of low cost, low power, and practical prosthetic hands.