Development of New Cosmetic Gloves for Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand by Using Thermoplastic Styrene Elastomer

This paper reports on design and development of new cosmetic gloves for Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand which provides a realistic appearance and flexible motion of robot hands. The main design issues are divided into five as followings; appearance, gripping performance, durability, texture, flexibility. The appearance includes the shape, wrinkles, finger mark, nail, and color of the hand; the aim is to make these properties of the prosthetic hand as similar to those of the human hand as possible. The durability is evaluated by adaptabilities for daily living, and flexible materials without prevention from finger motion. Furthermore, the gripping performance is improved by the thickness map of palm which is well fit to the gripping object. The experiment shows the results of the performance test applied to the pick-and-place task by using powered prosthetic hand in order to evaluate total properties of the developed cosmetic gloves.