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Multibody simulation of the musculoskeletal system of the human hand

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Abstract

This paper presents a numerical model of the forward multibody dynamics of the human hand. This model forms the basic foundation in the development of a five-fingered anthropomorphic hand prosthesis. The model is composed of two parts: a model for the rigid-body dynamics of the bone and joint structure of the human hand using the modified articulated-body algorithm for tree structures, and a model to represent the action the muscles tendons present in the hand. The resulting nonlinear model takes as input the actuation of each muscle and outputs the movements of the joints of the hand. This model will be used in the development of a nonlinear controller for the prosthesis and in its testing before being applied into the prosthesis prototype.

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Notes

  1. This is the main objective of the ABA—to decouple the system of n differential equations into n independent second order differential equations.

  2. The variable saturations can be seen by observing the amplitude of the movement when spreading the fingers (in the perpendicular plane to the extension/flexion) with the MCP joint (commonly known as knuckles) in different positions.

  3. On a healthy hand, when a movement is performed, usually the agonist (the muscle working towards the movement) and the antagonist (the muscle working against the movement) are balanced to perform smoother and more stable movements.

  4. Although the work done in [26] is for the index finger only, the parameters can be adapted to be used in the other fingers since they share common muscles and the specific ones are similar between each other.

  5. This condition stems from the modeling of the tendons as inelastic and always stretched “wires”.

  6. The balance of moments cannot be done because the tendons do not resist nor transmit moments.

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Acknowledgements

This work was founded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under the scholarship no. FRH/BD/22861/2005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Engineering Office Wing 548, 3800 Finnerty Road, V8W2Y2, Victoria, Canada

    André Carvalho & Afzal Suleman

  2. IDMEC—Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal

    Afzal Suleman

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  1. André Carvalho
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  2. Afzal Suleman
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Correspondence to Afzal Suleman.

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Carvalho, A., Suleman, A. Multibody simulation of the musculoskeletal system of the human hand. Multibody Syst Dyn 29, 271–288 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11044-012-9325-8

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