Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Thesis
Terms of Use
© 2024 Oliver Garcia. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. For all other uses, please contact the copyright holder.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Engineering Department
First Advisor
Joseph Towles
Abstract
Around 5.6 million people in the US have had an amputation or were born with limb difference. Some of these people find prostheses to be useful devices that allow them to perform desired activities that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to carry out. One form of prosthetic that, as far as I have found, has not been developed, is one for fretting chords on a guitar. Such a prosthetic would require multiple degrees of freedom for each finger, fine motor control, as well as quick actuation and signal interpretation. Most general purpose robotic prostheses today are either far too expensive, medically invasive, otherwise inaccessible, or unsuited for this task. The goal of this project was to design a low-cost, noninvasive robotic hand able to play chords on the guitar, and could be adapted into a terminal device of a robotic prosthesis. The robotic hand was constructed, as well as software for controlling the device, and it was able to play chords on the guitar on command. Due to time constraints, the system for biological control of the hand was only partially completed. The finalization of this aspect of the project is a focus for future work.
Recommended Citation
Garcia, Oliver , '24, "Myoelectric Robotic Hand to Play Guitar" (2024). Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards. 924.
https://works.swarthmore.edu/theses/924