Development of artificial hand gripper for rehabilitation process

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of a robotic hand that imitates the movement of a human hand. The basic movement of the surgeon hand was limited from a wrist, elbow and shoulder degree of freedom during an operation. The artificial hand gripper system requires sensors for a smooth and accurate movement. This allows large movement from the surgeon hand to be corrected on a small scale with a perfect incision and without any vibration. Although such a system available in the market, the utilization of robotic hand particularly in Malaysia for medical application are still very minimum due to its expensive cost. Therefore, in this research we plan to develop a reasonably cheaper home built robotic hand which can perform the task of a hand gripper as a beginning step. The initial objective of this research is to analyze and develop artificial arm with a strength limit proportional to the weight. Next, followed by the attachment of a wireless system on the prosthetic gripper via Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver. The system development involves a Programming Interfacing Circuit (PIC) 16F877 as a core processing for the instrumentation, communication and controlling applications. A series of flex force sensors are fitted in a leather glove to get reading from the movement of human fingers. Microcontroller will further use this information to control multiple servo that act as a mechanical hand inside the prosthetic gripper. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.