Conceptual design and feasibility study of a novel upper-limb exoskeleton

Abstract

In recent years, medical devices are becoming more and more important either for rehabilitation or to help people during daily life. For example, upper limb devices are used to recover motor functions after strokes, lesions of the nervous system, traumatic brain injuries or spinal cord injuries. Currently, the most important groups of medical devices for upper limbs are serial exoskeletons and end effector based devices. The existing solutions of these devices are usually fixed onto a structure that releases the patient from the mechanism's weight. This design makes it not possible for the patient to wear the robot during daily life. The purpose of this manuscript is to evaluate the feasibility of a wearable device for the upper limb. This device should not be fixed on a structure, in order to be used during daily life, and not be fixed to a location on the body. In order to accomplish this, a lightweight device is required coupled with good precision. For this reason, a novel parallel exoskeleton has been designed. Because parallel robots suffer from small workspace an innovative solution has been proposed.