Development of an underactuated prosthetic hand with the step motor

We present the development of a novel prosthetic hand based on the underactuated mechanism. The aim is focused on increasing its dexterity while keeping the same dimension and weight of a traditional prosthetic device. The hybrid step motor is used as the actuator, which enables the finger to keep enough high contact torque on the grasped object with less energy consumption provided by the holding torque. The grasping force of the finger is estimated from the base joint torque, and the adoption of impedance control has provided compliance in the grasping. Also a parallel observer is used to switch over between the impedance control and the torque holding mode. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the design and control strategy.