Although among designs of prosthetics there have been some successes in the design of functional robotic implants, there remain many issues and challenges concerned with the failure to meet the ‘ideal’ requirements of a satisfactory prosthetic. These ‘ideals’ require the device to be easy to control, comfortable to wear, and cosmetically pleasing. Because the literature on prosthetics and robotic implants are voluminous, this review focuses on four topics to determine key challenges and opportunities underlying these interdisciplinary research areas: firstly, an artificial hand as a biomimetic; secondly, prosthetic implants (electromyography signals and control); thirdly, prosthetic implants and tissue reactions to the material(s) of implants; fourthly, how inflammatory responses of cells and tissues surrounding implanted sensors interfere with the signal transmission of such sensors. This review also notes the importance of the biological interfaces that robotic implants and other prosthetic devices are in contact with and how an improved knowledge of pathophysiological changes at such biological interfaces will lead to improved and more biocompatible designs of prosthetics. This review concludes with the vision that, to develop a design that satisfies the above ‘ideals’, an interdisciplinary team of biomedical and tissue engineers, and biomaterial and biomedical scientists is needed to work together holistically and synergistically.

A chronological overview of the applications of control theory to prosthetic hand is presented. The overview focuses on hard computing or control techniques such as multivariable feedback, optimal, nonlinear, adaptive and robust and soft computing or control techniques such as artificial intelligence, neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms and on the fusion of hard and soft control techniques. This overview is not intended to be an exhaustive survey on this topic and any omissions of other works is purely unintentional.

This article presents a formulation of the design equations for a spatial serial chain that uses the Clifford algebra exponential form of its kinematics equations. This is the even Clifford algebra C⁺( P³), known as dual quaternions. These equations define the position and orientation of the end effector in terms of rotations or translations about or along the joint axes of the chain. Because the coordinates of these axes appear explicitly, specifying a set of task positions these equations can be solved to determine the location of the joints. At the same time, joint parameters or certain dimensions are specified to ensure that the resulting robotic system has specific features.