Multibody simulation of the musculoskeletal system of the human hand

This paper presents a numerical model of the forward multibody dynamics of the human hand. This model forms the basic foundation in the development of a five-fingered anthropomorphic hand prosthesis. The model is composed of two parts: a model for the rigid-body dynamics of the bone and joint structure of the human hand using the modified articulated-body algorithm for tree structures, and a model to represent the action the muscles tendons present in the hand. The resulting nonlinear model takes as input the actuation of each muscle and outputs the movements of the joints of the hand. This model will be used in the development of a nonlinear controller for the prosthesis and in its testing before being applied into the prosthesis prototype.