Prototyping a parallel link arm driven by small pneumatic actuator for shoulder prostheses

The shoulder prosthesis with a small pneumatic actuator driven parallel mechanism in daily living use, was suggested in this study. The configuration of the parallel link arm was optimized by means of the spatial accessibility and manipulability indexes for appraising the shoulder prosthesis. In particular, the effectiveness of biasing spacer was taken into consideration. The results showed that biasing spacers could improve the spatial accessibility. Eventually, the prototype was built on the basis of the optimal configuration, we validated the arm behavior and the availability of biasing spacers experimentally.