Matching of artificial limb with residual human limb by capacitance measurement technique

Abstract

Prosthetic amputee rehabilitation is a very common phenomenon in medical science. Artificial limb used as a substitution of a missing body part to restore its function is generally known as prosthesis. The most rudimentary requirement is to design the artificial limb such that it appears as natural as the missing body part in terms of functionality and comfort. A method of designing artificial limb is proposed after a detailed analysis of the existing prosthesis mechanisms, their evolution and drawbacks. The proposed technique presents a prosthetic replacement essentially with a complete negative impression of the residual limb and an exact matching customarily at the contact surface. The technique exploits the capability of measuring the capacitance in the range of picofarad (10−12 Farad) to acquire varying surface data of the residual limb for its exact matching with the artificial part. A micro-controller based capacitance measuring equipment is developed and it is applied to measure the unevenness of a surface. The accuracy is validated through image processing.