A Mechatronic System for Robot-Mediated Hand Telerehabilitation

Abstract

This paper presents a novel mechatronics master-slave setup for hand telerehabilitation. The system consists of a sensorized glove acting as a remote master and a powered hand exoskeleton acting as a slave. The proposed architecture presents three main innovative solutions. First, it provides the therapist with an intuitive interface (a sensorized wearable glove) for conducting the rehabilitation exercises. Second, the patient can benefit from a robot-aided physical rehabilitation in which the slave hand robotic exoskeleton can provide an effective treatment outside the clinical environment without the physical presence of the therapist. Third, the mechatronics setup is integrated with a sensorized object, which allows for the execution of manipulation exercises and the recording of patient's improvements. In this paper, we also present the results of the experimental characterization carried out to verify the system usability of the proposed architecture with healthy volunteers.