Human-like Robotic Hands for Biomedical Applications and Beyond

Human hands are amazing from an engineering viewpoint, as well as from a biological and anatomical perspective. Not to mention their sensory motor control system, which allows such a ‘gripper’ to manipulate any type of daily-life objects, to touch and feel, to interact with other beings and to express thoughts, sensations, and affections.

There are many circumstances in which these human hand interactions are not possible anymore. Whether this is due to an amputation or a set of technical constraints, as a result, there is a need to replace and execute tasks through robotics or prosthetic means. This is the case, for example, of artificial limb replacement, prosthetics and supernumerary limbs’ scenarios or robotics surgery, to mention a few.

In this context, we aim at collecting any contributions which may advance the development of robotic and prosthetic hands in any biomedical applications

Your contribution should provide strong benefits to the end-user in any context of biomedicine, being directly related to human-like artificial hands

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Prosthetic Hands

• Robotic Hands

• Low-cost Prosthetic & Robotic Hands

• Soft Prosthetic & Robotic Hands

• Biologically Inspired & Biomimetic Design of Prosthetic & Robotic Hands

• Actuators & Sensors for Robotic Hands

• Control & Actuation Systems for Robotic Hands

• EMG-based Controllers for Robotic Hands

• EEG-based Controllers for Robotic Hands

• Unidirectional & Bidirectional BMI/BCI Controllers for Robotic Hands

• Design & Manufacturing of Robotic Hands

• Miniaturized Hands for Robotic Surgery

• Multi-Fingered Grippers for Minimally Invasive Surgery and/or Laparoscopy

We are particularly interested in solutions which are biologically inspired, simple and low-cost (possibly requiring open source Software, Hardware, Design and Manufacturing solutions)

We are also looking at solutions which are easy to be replicated and which provide an easy and intuitive interaction between the device and the end-user

Keywords: Prosthetic Hands, Robotic Hands, Low-cost Design, Biologically Inspired Design

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.