A synthetic framework for evaluating the anthropomorphic characteristics of prosthetic hands

In order to improve the prosthetic hand´s design and usability, this paper presents a synthetic framework for evaluating the current prosthetic hands´ anthropomorphic features with 12 quantified prosthetic hand anthropomorphism evaluation indexes (QPHAEIs). Our primary results show that a global anthropomorphic score (GAS) of the current commercial prosthetic hands is only 45.2%. The compliance, coupling speed ratio and configuration of the degrees of freedom (DOF) are found to be the lowest three anthropomorphism evaluation indexes in all QPHAEIs. Besides these significant findings, a consideration priority order in prosthetic hand´s anthropomorphic index design is also proposed. Further correlation analysis indicates that evaluation methods using rotation axis distribution, rather than experimental grasp gesture, are more reliable to measure a prosthetic hand´s GAS.