Towards a Realistic and Self-Contained Biomechanical Model of the Hand

Abstract

to understand the role of the different anatomical elements, to understand the causes and effects of pathologies, to simulate neuromuscular abnormalities, to plan rehabilitation, to simulate tendon transfer and joint replacement surgeries, to analyse the energetics of human movement and athletic performance, to design prosthetics and biomedical implants, to design functional electric stimulation controllers, to name a few. These models, however, do not differ much from the ones developed before 2000, and many limitations are still evident. For example, contact forces and zones need to be measured experimentally and input to the model. In contrast, much research has been carried out on animation techniques over the past years, mainly for use in developing computer games. Lately, these advances have been cleverly used by some ergonomics researchers to develop improved graphical and kinematics hand models for evaluating the use of products On the other hand, robot hand grasps have been extensively studied for years. Although until 2000 little attention was paid to human hand grasping, this too has become a hot topic in robotics. The experience in modelling the robot hand grasps has been used to reach a better understanding of human grasping The hand is considered as the end-effector for humans. These models, however, are not appropriate for studying many of the above-mentioned objectives, as their interest is different. The focus in robotics research is on planning the grasp and finding an optimum grasp, and quality grasp measures that have been developed for robots are used. These models do not include muscles and tendons in the formulation. The latest developments in ergonomic hand models and human hand grasp models can be used to improve the existing biomechanical models of the hand and extend their functionality. A promising research area lies ahead with scientist, aiming to obtain a more comprehensive model of the hand, integrating knowledge and developments from the fields of biomechanics, ergonomics, robotics, and computer animation. In this chapter, a review of the literature regarding biomechanical models of the hand, ergonomics hand models and human hand grasp models is presented. The three approaches are used to draw out the rules for developing an improved biomechanical model, able to tackle any of the above-mentioned objectives in a virtual environment, without external experimental data.