A soft robotic exomusculature glove with integrated sEMG sensing for hand rehabilitation

Abstract

Stroke affects 750,000 people annually, and 80% of stroke survivors are left with weakened limbs and hands. Repetitive hand movement is often used as a rehabilitation technique in order to regain hand movement and strength. In order to facilitate this rehabilitation, a robotic glove was designed to aid in the movement and coordination of gripping exercises. This glove utilizes a cable system to open and close a patients hand. The cables are actuated by servomotors, mounted in a backpack weighing 13.2 lbs including battery power sources. The glove can be controlled in terms of finger position and grip force through switch interface, software program, or surface myoelectric (sEMG) signal. The primary control modes of the system provide: active assistance, active resistance and a preprogrammed mode. This project developed a working prototype of the rehabilitative robotic glove which actuates the fingers over a full range of motion across one degree-of-freedom, and is capable of generating a maximum 15N grip force.

Design Requirements of Generic Hand Exoskeletons and Survey of Hand Exoskeletons for Rehabilitation, Assistive, or Haptic Use

“…Alignment strategies require mechanical and finger joints to be aligned, such that the exoskeleton can fit on user's hand accurately, and actuator forces can be mapped (a) Palmar device [63] (b) Lateral device [43] (c) Dorsal device [90] into perceived ones directly. The first alignment strategy is to manufacture a custom exoskeleton for each user individually [44], [48], [51], [69], [82]. A custom exoskeleton must be designed with variable link lengths corresponding to user's hand size.…”

“…Palmar devices consist of mechanical or transmission components placed inside the palm of the hand (see Figure 8(a)) [50], [51], [63], [72]. Unfortunately, they prevent users to get in touch with real objects for assistive use.…”

Affective Touch and Low Power Artificial Muscles for Rehabilitative and Assistive Wearable Soft Robotics

“…Wearable robotics may be helpful in providing enhanced and automatic rehabilitation and assistance. Conventional rigid robotics, such as exoskeletons, have set the bar for 'wearable' physical rehab and assist devices [1] [2]. Unfortunately the limitations of rigid robots and their underlying reliance on geared motors and rigid metals and plastics reduces the adaptability and comfort of these devices and elevates their cost and complexity.…”

AirExGlove — A novel pneumatic exoskeleton glove for adaptive hand rehabilitation in post-stroke patients

“…These exoskeletons are usually pneumatically actuated with the actuation system being mounted on the back of the hand, because if mounted on the palm the system would represent an obstacle to most manipulation tasks, due to the encumbrance of these actuators. Systems based on fabric structures using tendon actuation such as those presented in [10], [11], [14] can support both closure and opening of the hand. metacarpo-phalangeal (MCP), proximal interphalangeal (PIP) and distal interphalangeal (DIP).…”

“…In particular, these systems have outperformed standard rehabilitation routines in case of upper limb extremities [7] resulting in the growing development of hand rehabilitation devices. The ergonomics of hand exoskeletons has been significantly improved by soft robotics: a number of systems have been developed using soft materials such as elastomers [8], [9] and fabric [10], [11], making use of pneumatic and tendon actuation.…”