Structure Design of a Wearable Device for Hand Rehabilitation

Abstract

This paper presents a wearable robotic device designed for hand assistance and post-stroke rehabilitation. The design process included the anatomical analysis of human hand, the issue of human/exoskeleton axes misalignment and the structure design of the index finger module of the hand exoskeleton. The wearable device interacted with the user's hand functionally and safely by an anthropomorphic kinematics. A slider-crank-like mechanism was designed to solve the issue of human/exoskeleton rotational axes misalignment. The results show that the device has simple structure and is affordable and reliable.