Soft Robotic Hand Exoskeleton Systems: Review and Challenges Surrounding the Technology

Abstract

Soft robotic hand exoskeleton systems are taken into account to solve the problems happened in the hand rehabilitation, such as long-term training for stroke patients and heavy workload for physicians. These systems are one of the hot issues in recent robotic research because that they are not only applied in rehabilitation but also in assisting the human beings. With the difference of the rigid robotic exoskeleton hand systems, the soft exoskeleton hand systems should be designed together with the human hand since they directly interact with the patients. This paper briefly reviews different robotic hand exoskeleton systems from two aspects: mechanical design and control system. The existing soft hand exoskeleton technologies and challenges are discussed in this paper.