Mechanism and Machine Theory 145 (2020) 103677 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Mechanism and Machine Theory journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechmachtheory Review Robotic hand: A review on linkage-driven finger mechanisms of prosthetic hands and evaluation of the performance criteria S. Reza Kashef a , Samane Amini b , Alireza Akbarzadeh b,* a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran b Center of Excellence on Soft Computing and Intelligent Information Processing (SCIIP), Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 6 August 2019 Revised 9 October 2019 Accepted 16 October 2019 Keywords: Prosthetic hand Under-actuated mechanism Artificial finger mechanism Performance criterion Linkage-driven prosthesis a b s t r a c t Mechanical design of an artificial finger is the key factor in determining the performance of a prosthetic hand. To achieve a simple, dexterous and functional bionic hand, researchers have argued that two main requirements should be incorporated in developing an arti- ficial finger: (i) an anthropomorphic structure and (ii) the capability of grasping objects in a stable and secure way. This paper first considers the existing body of literature on the various performance criteria used for prosthetic fingers. These criteria are classified into a) grasp and b) physical characteristics. To this end, various perspectives of existing papers on prosthetic finger’s features such as shape-adaptivity, natural motion, stability, force isotropy, workspace, and weight are considered. Furthermore, existing linkage-driven fingers of hand prostheses are reviewed. For this purpose, relevant articles published be- tween 2000 and 2019 were searched, and a total of 28 linkage-driven mechanisms from about 280 papers were selected and assessed based on the performance criteria. Finally, according to the intended use of a prosthetic hand, this paper suggests some key consid- erations needed for developing an anthropomorphic artificial finger. © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction The hand is one of the most functional limbs of the human body which is able to perform a variety of daily tasks. In different communities, many lose this essential limb due to numerous reasons such as congenital causes, diabetes, and unpredictable accidents. Owing to amputees’ appeal for replacing a tool with their lost hand, development of the hand prosthesis technology is a major incentive for researchers. Cordella et al. conducted a comprehensive survey of almost 1000 subjects [1]. Based on that research, in the viewpoint of amputees, a suitable prosthetic hand has different features such as resemblance with the human hand anatomy, low weight, low cost and high functionality (capability of performing handy grasp patterns, particularly power and precision grasp [2]). To accomplish the mentioned goals in a prosthetic hand, various designs and models have been proposed so far. In some cases, they have been commercialized. Belter and Dollar [3] have compared the general features of 5 commercial and 11 research hands such as type and the number of motors, the number of degrees of freedom (DOFs), coupling methods among phalanges, the range of motion of the finger’s joints, and the amount of forces applied in different grasp patterns. In addition to investigating the human grasp patterns and various driving systems, Controzzi et al. [4] have compared the specifications of several prosthetic hands * Corresponding author. E-mail address: ali_akbarzadeh@um.ac.ir (A. Akbarzadeh). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2019.103677 0094-114X/© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.