Trying her hand at competition

Thanks to a sensor worn on the opposite hand, the mechanical wrist, hand and fingers attached to her prosthetic right arm will follow the same movements as those on the left.

"It has a very strong grip strength, and can easily lift objects of up to 10 kilograms," Xu says.

The arm developed by the Chinese team stood out among several strong competitors that came from Sweden, France, Italy, Spain and Indonesia. The mechanical arm on Xu proved its superior strength and efficiency in manual operations.

Hu Xuhui, head of the Chinese team, says he hopes that through this competition, China's achievements in the field of assistive and rehabilitative mechanics for people with disabilities, as well as the achievements made in the rehabilitation of disabled people, will be seen by the world.

"We have creatively added an electric wrist joint on the cable-driven prosthetic arm, which allows for rapid rotation during active opening and closing movements, as well as very easy angle adjustment," Hu explains.

The technical team accomplished freedom of movement in both the hand and wrist, while an accurate body-driven control system was applied to deliver synchronous and rapid control of the arm.

The components connecting the structure of the prosthesis and those in the socket were made through 3D printing.

"It makes the entire mechanical hand lightweight and thus greatly reduces the burden on people with disabilities," Hu says.

"This mechanical hand is as flexible as a human hand, and it can quickly and synchronously use the two joints of the hand and wrist," Hu says.

"That paved the way for completing tasks such as lifting heavy objects and performing dexterous operations in the competition," Hu adds.

Hu, the mastermind of the project, was born in Suzhou, and he became interested in robotics and automation when he was studying electrical engineering in college.

His interest in the subject was stoked when he joined an intelligent car design project in his junior year.

"It involved programming and mechanical design, and I found it fulfilling when I put together a car on my own," Hu recalls.

That was when he went on to pursue prosthetic studies in his postgraduate and doctoral phases at the School of Instrument Science and Engineering at Southeast University in Jiangsu's provincial capital, Nanjing.

"I was told the field involves a lot of automation and robotics research," he says.

As he delved deeper into the subject, Hu was fascinated by the potential of the field and how human-machine interactions might help those in need.

In 2019, Hu got to know Xu, who learned through the Suzhou municipal federation for disabled persons that Hu was looking for a subject for his prosthetic studies.

They talked regularly, either on the phone or through WeChat, so Hu could better understand Xu's prosthetic requirements.

In December 2022, Hu started his postdoctoral research at the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, and he was designing the mechanical arm.

"I wanted it to mimic the functions of a normal human arm, so I invited Xu to try it on," Hu says.

Xu was excited when she heard the news.