Design of an artificial arm with hand gripper for telemedicine system

Abstract

This paper presents a bio-mechatronic approach to the design and fabricate of an artificial arm, focusing on designing artificial shoulder, biceps, wrist and hand. The proposed design provides a novel tool towards upper limb amputee rehabilitation process. Detail 3D designs of the artificial arm are described including an elbow powered by a car's power window motor, DC motor powered wrist and a string actuated Artificial Hand Gripper (AHG) with 5 artificial fingers which acts as a slave that is controlled by a Smart Glove (master). The AHG incorporates a master-slave system which proven suitable for Mirror Visual Feedback (MVF) therapy experimented on subject towards the completion of this research. There are so many hand prostheses which is commercially available, however, due to the disadvantages such as weight, high cost and complex mechanism, this paper on the other hand proposed new ideas on problem solving by providing an artificial arm which gives good cosmetic appearance, functional, low-cost and users friendly.