paul
I will use mini geared motors to actuate each one of the fingers individually and 2 of the motors to actuate the thumb and perform the thumb roll. I think with an automated thumb roll the InoDex prosthetic hand will be able to better simulate the human hand allowing for a much wider range of grips. The motors will use a worm gear to rotate a gear with a reel connected to it. By rotating the reel a cable will be wound around it and the fingers will be actuated, the joints of the fingers will have to have some sort of spring action which will open the finger as the cable is un-wound and hold them open until they are actuated again.
The bending of the thumb will work in the same way and the whole mechanism the thumb, motor, gear, and reel are on is going to roll by way of another mini geared motor. Everything is going to be powered by a lithium ion battery and the brains of the InoDex Prosthetic hand will be an Arduino Nano V3.0. I am not the best programmer so developing the firmware for InoDex may be one of the most difficult parts of this whole project.
My hopes are to eventually develop the InoDex to the point that everything can be controlled by signals from the users muscles through pads attached to the remaining limb. I think through the use of 3D Printing and inexpensive development boards will bring this technology to those who can not afford to spend thousands of dollars for prosthesis that perform similar functions, if I were to have an accident something like this would be my only hope and I want to make sure this is available for those in need.
Matt
Sam Baker
Johannes Hassler
James Dietz