Five engineering students of Toc H Institute of Science  and Technology at Arakunnam near here have come up with an Electromyography (EMG) controlled prosthetic arm.

The students – Mereena Baby, Aysha Zenab Kenza, Nikitha Sajan, Lakshmi Mohan, and Sharon Alex – are in the final year of their B.Tech Computer Science programme.

A release issued by the college claimed that the robotic arm would meet the basic daily requirements of an amputee, even though it lacked advanced features.

The prosthetic arm is priced at ₹2 lakh while those with advanced features cost anywhere between ₹15 lakh to ₹25 lakh, which is out of the reach of the common man, it said.

The students said that the Myo-armband interprets the electric signals produced as a result of the muscle movements and converts them into accurate hand gestures. They are then read by a micro-controller through a Bluetooth dongle.

Server motors

Based on those signals read, an appropriate number of server motors are rotated to move the prosthetic limb, they said.

The release said that the product could be made faster and easier by using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence.

The students expressed the hope that they would get support from investors to take the product to users.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / June 03rd, 2018