Flexion and Extension Capable Motor Tendon Actuated Exosuit Glove With Open Palm

Abstract

Patients suffering from medical conditions resulting in hand impairment experience difficulty in performing simple daily tasks, like getting dressed or using a pencil, resulting in a poorer quality of life. Rehabilitation attempts to help such individuals regain a sense of control and normalcy. In this context, recent advances in robotics have manifested in multiple designs of hand exoskeletons and exosuit gloves for assistance and rehabilitation. These designs are typically actuated using pneumatic, shape memory alloys and motor-tendon actuators. The proposed Motor Tendon Actuated Exosuit Glove (MTAEG) with an open palm is a soft material glove capable of both flexion and extension of all four fingers of the human hand. Its minimally invasive design maintains an open palm to facilitate haptic and tactile interaction with the environment. The MTAEG achieves flexion-extension motion with joint angles of 45° at the metacarpal joint which is 57% of the desired motion; 90° at the proximal interphalangeal joint which is 100% of the desired motion; and 50° at the distal interphalangeal joint which is 96% of the desired motion. The paper discusses the challenges in achieving the desired motion without the ability to directly model human tendons, and the inability to actuate joints individually.