Wireless Control of Robotic Artificial Hand Using Myoelectric Signal Based on Wideband Human Body Communication

A Myoelectric hand is a robotic artificial hand controlled by myoelectric signals and driven by motors. The myoelectric signals are detected on the arm and sent to the motor controller by wire for driving the artificial hand. However, from the point of view of convenience, wireless connection between the myoelectric signal detector and the motor controller is strongly desired. In this paper, we developed a human body communication-based wireless transmitter and receiver for transmitting the myoelectric signals from the arm to the motor controller of the myoelectric hand. The transmitter and the receiver employed a wideband impulse radio system at about 10-50-MHz extremely weak radio power band and were implemented on a field programmable gate array, respectively. The feasibility of the wireless myoelectric hand was confirmed by a wireless transmission experiment of myoelectric signals and an operation experiment of the myoelectric hand. The wireless transmission experiment achieved a correlation coefficient as high as 0.999 between the transmitted and received myoelectric signals, and the operation experiment demonstrated a normal movement of the myoelectric hand controlled by the wireless myoelectric signals. This result should be the first realization example of wireless control of a robotic artificial hand based on human body communication technology.