Design of a sensorised object to test sensory feedback for prosthetic hands

Sensory feedback is an area of research that has a significant impact on the control, acceptance and embodiment of upper limb prostheses. Currently, there are no consistent test methodologies for sensory feedback and often the impact of sensory feedback is intertwined with the adaptation required for using a new hand prosthesis. In this paper, we present the design of a sensorised object to measure, record and transmit the gripping force of prosthetic hands. This provides an inexpensive technique to examine the impact of sensory feedback techniques on gripping force (and vice versa) of a user's existing myoelectric prosthesis without the need to recalibrate force sensors for each different prosthetic hand. In addition, we propose four performance metrics to be used when examining the impact of sensory feedback over the control of moving objects using a pinch grip.