A novel, soft, bending actuator for use in power assist and rehabilitation exoskeletons

Abstract

This article presents the development of a fully soft, exoskeleton robot for power augmentation and rehabilitation of a human wrist joint. The system is powered by novel bending pneumatic muscles which have been combined with contractor pneumatic muscles to provide actuation for the glove. This research has assessed the behaviour of the new bending actuators and demonstrated them in a prototype wrist exoskeleton. An accompanying mathematical model of the force generated by the proposed extensor bending artificial muscles has been developed. The proposed wearable robot is capable of producing flexion-extension and abduction-adduction motions of the human wrist to generate rehabilitation motions. The exoskeleton is designed to fit any adult hand size without the need for any mechanical changes, meaning it can easily be swapped between users.