• Myoelectric prosthesis control

The human hand is a complex and adaptable system, chief organ for action and sensation, whose loss strongly affects the amputees’ quality of life. The present work is part of the research project named CECA2020, funded by INAIL, aimed to advance a new generation of high-tech upper limb prostheses suitable in two main clinical scenarios: partial hand and transradial amputations.
The goal of this thesis is to develop the embedded controller driving the prostheses designed for the CECA2020 project. The peculiarity of these prostheses stands in the modularity of the electronic architecture: starting from the outmost level a master module handles the coordinated action of the fingers; each prosthetic finger is actuated by a dc motor driven by its own electronic control board, located on the finger structure itself, and it is able to execute complex actions such as the simultaneous and independent position control at different speeds. Two finger modules are going to be integrated with two types of sensorized fingertips, providing a robust sensory system able to detect the interactions with the external world.
To evaluate the performances of the prosthetic prototypes and to verify their reliability, a characterization of the fingers has been carried out in terms of force, current absorption and velocity. As expected, the accomplished measurements resulted comparable with the characteristics of the state of the art of myoelectric prostheses.