Mechanical Design and Development of a 2 Degrees of Freedom Prosthetic Arm

To improve the availability of affordable prostheses in developing regions, there is a need to introduce and produce a readily available and efficient device using locally sourced materials and accessible electronics. This paper presents the mechanical design of a prosthetic human arm with 2 DOFs at the elbow and 1 DOF at the wrist. The objective of this design is to have an anthropomorphic, functional, and low-cost prosthesis. A set of dynamic simulations were performed using SOLID WORKS and MATLAB SIMULINK to determine the feasibility of the mechanism as well as the torque required to perform the activities. The proposed fabricated model was subjected to real-time tests to determine its performance. The results obtained from this study are compared to results from other prosthetic arms including the Utah Arm by motion control Inc, Boston Elbow, and the CINVESTAV-IPN. The prototype weighing 800g is capable of active elbow flexion and extension and wrist Prono-supination this confirmed and supported the fact that the proposed fabricated model is a useful step to achieving affordable prostheses with this approach. These results are in line with the World Health Organization’s standard for prosthetics and orthotics and they showed that the design could be a good solution due to the physical characteristics and the kinematic of the system.