Design of Prosthetic Skins with Humanlike Softness

Abstract

Prosthetic hands and arms that have realistic appearance and can be controlled by the user's thoughts are emerging. As these technologies mature, it is likely that there will be an increased interest in endowing these with skins having humanlike softness in order to address the psychosocial issues coupled with prosthesis usage in social interactions. The objective of the project described in this paper is to find an optimal design of a prosthetic hand's skin that would be comparable to the softness of the human hand. The project aims to develop simulation and experimental methodologies for selecting skin materials, designing their internal geometries and comparing their behavior to the biomechanical skin behavior of the human hand for activities concerning social touch (e.g. handshakes, high fives, caress, etc.). In particular, this paper is focused on modifying the internal geometry of an artificial fingertip and evaluate whether significant changes in the skin compliance can be achieved. Simulation results show that modifying the internal geometry of the synthetic skin structure can lead to an increase in skin compliance. © 2009 International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering.