Design and Development of Adaptable Prostheti...

Design and Development of Adaptable Prosthetic Limb using Electromyography Technology

Author Name : Dr Vandna Bhalla, Shubham Srivastava, Bhargava Reddy, Simant Kumar, Avnish Yadav

ABSTRACT

Using electromyogram (EMG) signals to control upper-limb prosthetics is an important clinical option, offering a person with amputation autonomy of control by contracting residual muscles. It has been a challenge for the scientific community to develop prosthetic limbs for people who have lost their counterparts in accidents, trauma or any disease affecting the limbs. Such people cannot perform basic functions such as eating and lifting objects. Broadly speaking, these people are not self sufficient but our innovative model presents an opportunity for them to look forward to. The muscles in the remaining part of the arm function in a normal way, enabling the EMG signals from them to be used in limb replacement techniques. Moreover the present day prosthetics are person specific, not manufactured on large scale and are expensive. This paper incorporates a basic idea for developing a prosthetic arm using the EMG technology that would easily adapt and fit to the limb and perform actions similar to that of the lost counterpart regardless of age, gender and physiology. In this technique the signals are acquired from the patient’s body and then used after suitable processing to set an automatic threshold for movement based on the physiology. The threshold is used as control input to drive motors which are coupled with the attached prosthetic device.

Keywords: Upper limb prosthetics, electromyograms, surface EMG,  adaptable prosthetics, EMG dependence on physiology