TY - GEN
T1 - A compliant four-bar linkage mechanism that makes the fingers of a prosthetic hand more impact resistant
AU - Choi, Kyung Yun
AU - Akhtar, Aadeel
AU - Bretl, Timothy
N1 - ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by Korean Government Scholarship Program, NIH F30HD084201, and NSF IIS-1320519.
PY - 2017/7/21
Y1 - 2017/7/21
N2 - Repeated mechanical failure due to accidental impact is one of the main reasons why people with upper-limb amputations abandon commercially-available prosthetic hands. To address this problem, we present the design and evaluation of a compliant four-bar linkage mechanism that makes the fingers of a prosthetic hand more impact resistant. Our design replaces both the rigid input and coupler links with a monolithic compliant bone, and replaces the follower link with three layers of pre-stressed spring steel. This design behaves like a conventional four-bar linkage but adds lateral compliance and eliminates a pin joint, which is a main site of failure on impact. Results from free-end and fixed-end impact tests show that, compared to those made with a conventional four-bar linkage, fingers made with our design absorb up to 11% more energy on impact with no mechanical failure. We also show the integration of these fingers in a prosthetic hand that is low-cost, light-weight, and easy to assemble, and that has grasping performance comparable to commercially-available hands.
AB - Repeated mechanical failure due to accidental impact is one of the main reasons why people with upper-limb amputations abandon commercially-available prosthetic hands. To address this problem, we present the design and evaluation of a compliant four-bar linkage mechanism that makes the fingers of a prosthetic hand more impact resistant. Our design replaces both the rigid input and coupler links with a monolithic compliant bone, and replaces the follower link with three layers of pre-stressed spring steel. This design behaves like a conventional four-bar linkage but adds lateral compliance and eliminates a pin joint, which is a main site of failure on impact. Results from free-end and fixed-end impact tests show that, compared to those made with a conventional four-bar linkage, fingers made with our design absorb up to 11% more energy on impact with no mechanical failure. We also show the integration of these fingers in a prosthetic hand that is low-cost, light-weight, and easy to assemble, and that has grasping performance comparable to commercially-available hands.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85027960014
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85027960014#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2017.7989791
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2017.7989791
M3 - Conference contribution
C2 - 29527386
AN - SCOPUS:85027960014
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 6694
EP - 6699
BT - ICRA 2017 - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2017
Y2 - 29 May 2017 through 3 June 2017
ER -