Sensing and control for prosthetic hands in clinical and research applications

Recent research has led to advances in sophisticated prosthetic devices and associated scientific and technological challenges have also opened up new avenues of exploration. Prosthetic hand research is largely driven by clinical needs to achieve higher user functionality and outcome measures. The persistent questions at the forefront of both clinical and research applications are how to improve prosthesis control and provide sensory feedback. Restoring a sense of touch can help upper limb amputees improve the use of their prosthetic hands. This chapter provides a brief overview of sensing and control technology for hand prostheses, specifically as they relate to clinical and research applications. We discuss signal processing techniques for decoding hand movement as well as efforts to provide natural sensory feedback. We address some of the major challenges faced by upper limb amputees and discuss how user needs have driven the technology forward.