Evaluation of User-Prosthesis-Interfaces for sEMG-Based Multifunctional Prosthetic Hands

Abstract

The complexity of the user interfaces and the operating modes present in numerous assistive devices, such as intelligent prostheses, influence patients to shed them from their daily living activities. A methodology to evaluate how diverse aspects impact the workload evoked when using an upper-limb bionic prosthesis for unilateral transradial amputees is proposed and thus able to determine how user-friendly an interface is. The evaluation process consists of adapting the same 3D-printed terminal device to the different user-prosthesis-interface schemes to facilitate running the tests and avoid any possible bias. Moreover, a study comparing the results gathered by both limb-impaired and healthy subjects was carried out to contrast the subjective opinions of both types of volunteers and determines if their reactions have a significant discrepancy, as done in several other studies.

Keywords

• assistive robotics
• upper-limb prosthesis
• electromyography
• user-prosthesis interface