Design Name: Robo-Prosthetic Development Platform

Description:

The Robo-Prosthetic Development Platform is designed to provide students and instructors with an adaptable platform to develop prosthetic systems. The 3D assembly snaps together forming smoothly sliding joints capable of handling every day objects. Furthermore, the tip of each of the phalanges is feathered to allow a more distributed load on the object being grasped.

Intended to perform as a completely flexible test bed, the hand is capable of utilizing custom circuit boards and sensors integrated directly into each of the individual phalanges as well as the swapping of entire finger assemblies through standard mounting points. With derivative designs limited only by the microcontroller platform chosen, this first Robo-Prosthetic platform was designed log over 30 channels of data using the Arduino Mega microcontroller, including eight Hall Effect sensors and five thermocouples.

Once mounted on the test stand via bolts in the wrist, the hand copies a classic flight control system, driven by a network of control lines, in this case monofilament thread passing through a reconfigurable control harness. Lastly, components representing the metacarpal bone of the thumb can be adjusted in length to vary the robots clenching ability to provide the robot with the widest array of possible use.