Active Prosthesis for Upper Limb

Only few artificial limbs for total upper arm replacement includes other active joints than those of hand and elbow. The main cause is the difficulty to the set up the limb command system. Some components of artificial upper arm have been recently designed and built by the our research group. The full arm consists of a two active axes shoulder and a single axis elbow, plus a commercial hand. The project comprises the development of the electronic boards, including motors’ control firmware and system command software. Many command strategies have been tested using a virtual reality tool, and some command sources have been evaluated, including BCI signals and head movements. The virtual training allows to check the patient attitude and build the learning curves associated to command methods.