X-Limb: A Soft Prosthetic Hand with User-Friendly Interface

Abstract

We have developed a soft prosthetic hand with features addressing the need of upper-limb amputees using soft robotics techniques. The designed hand is ultra-light and easy to manufacture. It is readily customisable for different hand size due to parameterised CAD design and using 3D printing techniques. The user-friendly control of the hand is achieved by using combination of designed-in behaviour of the finger and optimised movement of the fingers. This enables users to grasp a wide range of objects in one specific hand preshape eliminating the need for multiple switching between different grasps. The performance of the designed hand is evaluated through evaluation criteria used for prosthe..