The KIT Prosthetic Hand: Design and Control

The development and control of prosthetic hands is an active research area and recently progress in mechatronics, sensor integration and innovative control has been made. However, integration of different components into a prosthetic hand remains challenging due to space constraints, the requirements regarding holistic integration and the need for a user interface. In this paper, we present the KIT prosthetic hand, a novel five-finger 3D printed hand prosthesis, with its underactuated mechanism, sensors and embedded control system. The hand mechanics is based on the underactuated TUAT/Karlsruhe mechanism with two motors actuating 10 degrees of freedom. The mechanism has been realized in 3D printing technologies to facilitate a personalization of the prosthetic hand in terms of size and kinematic parameters. The prosthesis has been designed as a 50
^th
percentile male hand. It integrates an advanced embedded system as well as an RGB camera in the base of the palm and a colour display in the back of the hand. Experiments indicate a finger tip force of 7.48 N to 11.82 N, a hook grasp force of 120 N and a hand closing time of ~ 1.3 s.