Design and evaluation of an one DOF finger rehabilitation device

Abstract

This paper presents our second generation prototype of a magnetic resonance compatible finger rehabilitation robot. It can not only be used as a finger rehabilitation training tool after a stroke, but also to study the brain's recovery process during the rehabilitation therapy (ReT). The finger driving mechanism in current generation is an one degrees of freedom (DOF) driving mechanism, which could overcome the disadvantage that can`t provide precise finger trajectories during flexion and extension motion existing in previous version [11]. In addition, this design can also be adjustable to different persons' finger phalanges, as well as the gap between one finger to another can be easily changed. Furthermore, the kinematic analysis of the finger driving mechanism is detailed in this paper; Following, the describes of the control system and a self-motion control mode are presented. Finally, experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performances of this device.