Definition of an high-level firmware for the optimization of Mia Hand grasp and energy consume

Over the last few decades, great steps have been made in the development of novel prosthetic hands and terminal devices that exploit most of the latest technological advances in order to move toward more elegant and accessible solutions. A result of this evolutionary process is the MIA Hand, a bionic hand burned by the conjoined work of the bio-robotic institute of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and the spin off company Prensilia s.r.l. The MIA Hand has been designed by taking into account all the key features required by any state-of-the-art prosthetic hand (such as: hand weight, fingers speed, pinch force, compliance level exc...), in order to obtain a low cost robust solution. Nevertheless, due to its complex architecture, it has been pointed out that there exist some particular scenarios in which the supplying system of the hand is subject to stressful condition, which eventually result in a degrade of the desired performance. The aim of this thesis was that to analyze the working principle of the hand by both a mechanical and an electrical point of view in order to understand the basic functioning behind the low-level architecture and then to define an high-level firmware meant to optimize the grasp and the energy consume of the MIA Hand.