Welcome
The design and the development of prosthetic hands has been addressed for several years at the Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems Laboratory (ARTS) Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
The concept of the first cybernetic hand system was
conceived in the framework of the Cyberhand project (
funded by the Ftuture Emerging Technology Programme of
the UE, IST-FET-2001-35094 ). The Cyberhand project represents the first integrated
attempt to simultaneously address four main objectives:
- to obtain a cosmetic and dexterous artificial hand;
- to develop a bio-inspired artificial sensory system
to provide the patient with active perception;
- to implement a neurocontroller for the prosthesis
by extracting motor commands from the peripheral nervous
system (efferent system);
- to delivery sensory feedback (on touch,
proprioception) to the subject by stimulation of the
sensory nerve fibres (afferent system).
One of the key component of the Cyberhand is the neural interface, and it is still under development, before going
to clinical trials.
It is possible to navigate in this web site to find recent
information on the follow-up activities of the CyberHand
project. Several new projects are ongoing and they are carried out by students, engineers and researchers at
ARTS Lab in the framework of several national and
international research projects. |
