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Journal of Bionic Engineering ›› 2017, Vol. 14 ›› Issue (4): 692-705.doi: 10.1016/S1672-6529(16)60435-3

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A Case Study of a Force-myography Controlled Bionic Hand  Mitigating Limb Position Effect

Diego Ferigo1, Lukas-Karim Merhi1, Brittany Pousett2, Zhen Gang Xiao1, Carlo Menon1#br#   

  1. 1. MENRVA Research Group, School of Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
    2. Barber Prosthetics Clinic, Vancouver, BC, Canada
  • Received:2016-12-21 Revised:2017-08-21 Online:2017-10-10 Published:2017-10-10
  • Contact: Carlo Menon E-mail:cmenon@sfu.ca
  • About author:Diego Ferigo1, Lukas-Karim Merhi1, Brittany Pousett2, Zhen Gang Xiao1, Carlo Menon1

Abstract: Force Myography (FMG), which monitors pressure or radial deformation of a limb, has recently been proposed as a po-tential alternative for naturally controlling bionic robotic prostheses. This paper presents an exploratory case study aimed at evaluating how FMG behaves when a person with amputation uses a hand prosthetic prototype. One volunteer (transradial amputation) participated in this study, which investigated two experimental cases: static and dynamic. The static case considered forearm muscle contractions in a fixed elbow and shoulder positions whereas the dynamic case included movements of the elbow and shoulder. When considering eleven different hand grips, static data showed an accuracy over 99%, and dynamic data over 86% (within-trial analysis). The across-trial analysis, that takes into account multiple trials in the same data collection set, showed a meaningful accuracy respectively of 81% and 75% only for the reduced six grips setup. While further research is needed to increase these accuracies, the obtained results provided initial evidence that this technology could represent an in-teresting alternative that is worth exploring for controlling prosthesis.

Key words: transradial amputee, regression, limb position effect,  Force Myography (FMG), bionic hand, Human Machine Interface (HMI)