A Vision-Enabled Prosthetic Hand for Children with Upper Limb Disabilities

Digital Object Identifier preprint A Vision-Enabled Prosthetic Hand for Children with Upper Limb Disabilities MD ABDUL BASET SARKER 1, ART NGUYEN 2, SIGMOND KUKLA 3, KEVIN FITE 4, MASUDUL H. IMTIAZ 5 1 Md Abdul Baset Sarker is with Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY-13699, USA (e-mail: sarkerm@clarkson.edu). 2 Art Nguyen is with Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY-13699, USA (e-mail: nguyenqp@clarkson.edu). Paper submission date Mar 31, 2025' This work was supported in part by Clarkson University, Potsdam, NYABSTRACT This paper introduces a novel AI vision-enabled pediatric prosthetic hand designed to assist children aged 10-12 with upper limb disabilities. The prosthesis features an anthropomorphic appearance, multi-articulating functionality, and a lightweight design that mimics a natural hand, making it both accessible and affordable for low-income families. Using 3D printing technology and integrating advanced machine vision, sensing, and embedded computing, the prosthetic hand offers a low-cost, customizable solution that addresses the limitations of current myoelectric prostheses. A micro camera is interfaced with a low-power FPGA for real-time object detection and assists with precise grasping. The onboard DL-based object detection and grasp classification models achieved accuracies of 96% and 100% respectively. In the force prediction, the mean absolute error was found to be 0.018. The features of the proposed prosthetic hand can thus be summarized as: a) a wrist-mounted micro camera for artificial sensing, enabling a wide range of hand-based tasks; b) real-time object detection and distance estimation for precise grasping; and c) ultra-low-power operation that delivers high performance within constrained power and resource limits.INDEX TERMS artificial intelligence, prosthetic hand, rehabilitation, vision I. INTRODUCTION C ONGENITAL limb loss and upper extremity abnormalities were estimated to occur in approximately 15 individuals per 100,000 live births in the United States alone [1], [2]. Beyond congenital disabilities, tumors, severe infections, or traumatic injuries also cause pediatric limb deficiency and place a significant physical and emotional burden on a child and their family. Replacement of an upper limb with a functional prosthetic hand had the potential to restore some limb functionality and improve the independence of these children. Furthermore, the earlier children were fitted for a powered prosthesis, the lower the rate of prosthetic hand rejection in the later years of their life [3].