A Soft Robotic Glove for Hand Rehabilitation using Pneumatic Actuators with Jamming Structure

Abstract

In order to solve the problem that the current soft robotic glove for hand rehabilitation can only assist the movement of the fingers in a single direction and the output force is insufficient under lower air pressure, a soft pneumatic actuator coupled with a granular jamming system is designed. First of all, based on the analysis of the hand movement requirements, the design requirements of the soft robotic glove are proposed, and the structure design is carried out. Next, the deformation analysis of the pneumatic structure is performed based on the Yeoh model, and the actuator is simulated by ABAQUS. Finally, the manufacturing method of the actuator and the soft robotic glove is given, experiments of actuator performance and grasping experiments of the soft robotic glove are carried out. The results show that the maximum bending angle of the driver can reach 138°, the side swing angle can reach 60°, and the maximum output force can reach 5.7N under the pressure of 200kPa, which meets the requirements of hand rehabilitation and can assist in grasping objects.