Implementation of Prosthetic Hand through EMG Signals Usman Raza 1 , Syed Tahir Hussain Rizvi 2 1 Faculty of Engineering University of Central Punjab Lahore, Pakistan usman.raza.skt@gmail.com . 2 Faculty of Engineering University of Central Punjab Lahore, Pakistan tahir.rizvi@ucp.edu.pk Abstract— Prosthetic device replicate the function of original human anatomy hand and is considered as a useful invention after facing many challenges. Electromyography (EMG) is detection of electrical potential or signals according to the contraction or expansion of Muscles. Contraction/Expansion of muscle generates the electrical potential of few micro volts. EMG controlled prosthetic hand are hardly ever available in Pakistan. The reason of this unavailability is its high price and lack of research. This paper presents the implementation of EMG controlled prosthetic hand. The purpose of this research is to design a low cost multifunctional microcontroller based EMG prosthetic hand. Functional prototype is working according to the design. More research work should be supported and carried out, if this prototype has to be launched commercially. Index Terms— Prosthetic Hand, Electromyograph, Motor Unit, Microcontroller, Physical Implementation I. INTRODUCTION The prosthetic hand should be simple to control, easy to wear and artistically pleasing. In prosthetic devices, EMG control is the effective approach now a day and is non-invasive matched with other systems. In this research work, mainly a link is produced between a predefined hand motion patterns and the corresponding EMG signals produced by the forearm muscles. Detected signal is filtered, amplified and converted to a specific pattern to distinguish a muscle activity in microcontroller. Microcontroller commands the correspondent to imitate hand movement. Effects of displacement of the electrodes from the training position and body structure are briefly discussed from performance point of view. This paper is organized as follows: Section II introduces the detail of EMG signals. Section III describes the Hardware used. Section IV discusses the interfacing with MicroController and Section V discusses the simulations and results. II. ELECTROMYOGRAPHY The Electromyography is the measurement of the signals from the skin surface, or within the muscle by using the electrodes. EMG is used more often because it is safer and easier to use. EMG is used in both the fields of engineering and medical. A. Physiology of Muscle Complete human body movement is implemented according to skeleton muscle. Skeleton muscle consists of single large organ. Every other muscle consists of individual cells embedded in the Collagen matrix. Cells of muscle are cylindrical, with diameter of 10 to 100 micro meters. Myofiber is basically composed of water. It dissolves the ions which are separated from extra cellular space. It produces a potential variance along its cell membrane with different concentration of ions. These fibers are excitable cells and due to contraction a rapid depolarization occurs. During this complete process, electro-chemical event occurs. The potential is propagated along the cell membrane, descending from to the surface into (diagonal) tubular system and towards the end of fiber. The action of the potential with a muscle fiber induces the flow of ions and gives rise to extra-cellular recordable potential. Thus, the small current is produced proceeding the generation of muscle force. In myofibers, a motor unit is a complete contractile system in functional unit cell. Motor unit of muscle is the neuron motor. Axon and all the muscle fibers are attached to provide the signal for contraction and expansion.