Collection of films relating to the Southampton Hand project

Collection of films, slides and video of different stages of practical research produced by those working on the Southampton Hand project at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, England, c1980s-2010s.

Begun by Professor Jim Nightingale, Professor of Control Engineering at the University of Southampton in the 1960s, the Southampton Hand project ran for over 50 years. Many engineers interested in developing new types of prosthetic arms worked on the project, each adding their own advances to the project. Inspired by how our brains and hands communicate they aimed to make a prosthetic arm that was easy for users to control. The user initiates movement by thinking, which activates the muscles in their arm. This is detected and it opens and closes the hand. Sensors on the hand detect what shape object is within the hand and the microcontroller selects the grasp that is needed. This work led to the first microprocessor controlled prosthetic hands to be used in the outside of clinical trials.