Design of an exoskeleton for index finger rehabilitation

This paper presents a new exoskeleton with 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) for index finger rehabilitation. The device can generate bi-directional movement for all joints of the finger through cable transmission, which is required for passive and active trainings. With two prismatic kinematic joints in the design, it can accommodate to some extent variety of hand sizes. The kinematic relation between the device joint angles and the corresponding finger joint angles is simple which greatly simplifies the high level motion control. As the motor capability of patients may be different and the range of motion of the finger may change along with the rehabilitation progress, it is important to take the changes into consideration. And the preliminary experiment has shown that the proposed device is capable of accommodating to these varieties.

[1]  Takashi Maeno,et al.  Design and development of two concepts for a 4 DOF portable haptic interface with active and passive multi-point force feedback for the index finger , 2006 .

[2]  Naoki Kawakami,et al.  An Encounter-Type Multi-Fingered Master Hand Using Circuitous Joints , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[3]  Derek G. Kamper,et al.  An Actuated Finger Exoskeleton for Hand Rehabilitation Following Stroke , 2007 .

[4]  Haruhisa Kawasaki,et al.  A design of fine motion assist equipment for disabled hand in robotic rehabilitation system , 2011, J. Frankl. Inst..

[5]  K. Stubblefield,et al.  Hand Rehabilitation Following Stroke: A Pilot Study of Assisted Finger Extension Training in a Virtual Environment , 2007, Topics in stroke rehabilitation.

[6]  Shuguo Wang,et al.  Design and development of a portable exoskeleton based CPM machine for rehabilitation of hand injuries , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO).

[7]  Grigore C. Burdea,et al.  The Rutgers Master II-new design force-feedback glove , 2002 .

[8]  K. Kondak,et al.  Mechanical design and motion control of a hand exoskeleton for rehabilitation , 2005, IEEE International Conference Mechatronics and Automation, 2005.

[9]  Andreas Wege,et al.  Development and control of a hand exoskeleton for rehabilitation of hand injuries , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.