Thesis Project Form

Upper limb amputation entails a drastic loss of hand functionality. Prostheses aim to restore the lost functionality and thereby restore the independence of people with limb loss. A crucial part of prosthetic control is proportionality – the ability to modulate the speed of various degrees of freedom of a prosthesis. However, current proportional control algorithms only work for a few degrees of freedom and are not yet able to reproduce the natural proportionality of a biological hand.

The main objective is to propose and implement proportional control algorithms that improve on the current standard (e.g., increased resolution and support for simultaneously controlled degrees of freedom).

The main activities include:

- A short literature study for the student to familiarize with the current state of research in proportional prosthetic control
- Development of proportional algorithm
- Implementation of algorithm in Matlab
- Evaluation of algorithms on able-bodied participants and participants with amputation
- Analysis of experimental results

This thesis aims to improve on the current standard of proportional prosthetic control and thereby increase the functionality of prosthetic limbs as proportionality is necessary for both fine and accurate, as well as for fast and reliable grasp and finger movement. In turn, this will allow patients to control their prosthetic limb more naturally and efficiently.