Soft robotics for prosthetics — the journey
A semester-by-semester log of the M.Sc. thesis project, "Soft robotics based prosthetics and other mobility assistance robots," guided by Dr. Himansu S. Biswal (School of Chemical Sciences, NISER) and Dr. Subhankar Mishra (School of Computer Sciences, NISER).
- 7th Semester
Literature review
A literature review was conducted to analyse and evaluate the current state of the technology, which shaped the project plan for the following semesters.
- 8th Semester
Fabrication plan and initial work
A focused study of published EAP recipes was conducted to design our own ionic EAP fabrication recipe, in association with Dr. Bisnu P. Biswal's Lab, School of Chemical Sciences, NISER.
- 9th Semester
Fabrication of ionic EAP
We fabricated an ionic EAP using PANI (polyaniline) electrodes and a PVDF-HFP, EMIMBF4-based ionomer layer, and successfully demonstrated a working sample using commercially available conductive (carbon-based) paint as the electrode layer.
- 10th Semester
SMA hand and control strategies for robotic prosthetics
We collected EMG data from relevant forearm muscles to train an LSTM neural network, achieving 99% accuracy on binary classification of clenching vs. releasing a fist. We continued collecting data for other hand gestures, aiming to implement the trained model in a feasible powered prosthetic hand.
Demo: PVDF-HFP, EMIMBF4-based ionic electroactive polymer (ionic EAP)