Toward Bioinspired Prostheses Based on Human Hand Anthropomorphic Depiction: A Review Article

The incomparable structure of the natural human hand has long been an inspiration for prosthetics’ developers to design and implement mechanically equivalent prostheses. The bioinspired designs primarily intend to enable amputees to achieve their activities of daily living (ADLs) and improve the acceptance rate of robotic hands; however, the complication of the designs has not redeemed their pledge for improved functionality and independence. Prosthetic’s providers have been adopting anthropomorphism for commercial prosthetic designs, but the prostheses have been primarily built to function as robotic hands with limited humanoid features. In this review article, an anthropomorphic depiction has been presented for the human hand, from the biomechanical and anatomical perspective, coupled with a mechanical analogy and comprehension of the biological system. The article enlists the works aimed toward the implication of anatomical structure, features and anthropomorphic behavior concerning the main components of the human hand. The article discusses the anatomical features and their implementation in upper limb designs inspired by anthropomorphism. It concludes by highlighting the key behavioral features that mimic the biological counterpart for each component, as well as the primary success parameters used to evaluate the compliance of robotic hands with biological requirements.