Impact of Diverse Aspects in User-Prosthesis Interfaces for Myoelectric Upper-limb Prostheses

Numerous assistive devices possess complex ways to operate and interact with the subjects, influencing patients to shed them from their activities of daily living. With the purpose of presenting a better solution to mitigate issues generated by complex or expensive alternatives, a test comparing different user-prosthesis interfaces was elaborated to determine the effects of diverse aspects in their user-friendliness, including that of a version created for this work. A simplistic, anthropomorphic and 3D-printed upper-limb prosthesis was adapted to evaluate all the renditions considered. The chosen design facilitates the modification of its operational mode, facilitating running the tests. Additionally, the selected prosthetic device can easily be adapted to the amputees' lifestyle in a successful way, as shown by experimental results, providing validity to the study. For the interaction process, a wireless third party device was elected to gather the user intent and, in some renditions, to work in tandem with some sort of visual feedback or with a multimodal alternative to verify their impact on the user.