In developing countries, many amputees have no access to the prosthesis. This is due to the challenges of the environment they are living in and to the prohibitive costs of available prostheses. To reduce this gap, a new concept design for an extremely low cost but highly functional upper limb prosthesis is presented. This goal is attained using a low-cost embedded platform (Arduino) and a wearable stretch-sensor adapted from Electro resistive bands (ERBs). In the proposed design, a sensor based on ERB is used to detect residual muscle contraction which detects the volumetric shifts of contraction instead of electromyography signals. The signals received via this sensor is then processed via an Arduino micro-controller to drive a single DC servo motor. The DC servo motor is directly geared onto a claw-style two-fingered prosthesis which is printed in-house from PLA plastic using a standard 3-D printer. The amount of closure of the prosthesis is fed-back to the user via a second ERB sensor directly connected to the claw in the form of haptic feedback. To make the design easier to maintain, the gears and mechanical parts are made so simple that can be crafted even from recovered materials. The entire design of prosthesis is presented in this thesis. The overall cost for the proposed prosthesis is estimated to be AUD 29. The proposed design can be easily scaled up to accommodate more complex designs such as having multiple individual fingers or wrist rotation
