Design, build and control the rehabilitation robot to move fingers

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This research presents the design and development of a prototype fabric-based wearable soft exoskeleton. The soft glove assists the flexion and extension motion of the user’s hand with adjustable speed. The cable method is used to help bending fingers and for extending the fingers, spring blades have been used, the cables are gathered with the help of the gearbox engine and the fingers return to their normal state by reversing the direction of the engine and the force of the springs. With bandwidth modulation circuits and programming in the microcontroller, the movement and speed of the built robot are controlled. In order to determine the appropriate placement of components, including spring blades and cables, robot simulation was performed in SolidWorks software, and with the help of experimental tests, suitable spring blades were selected in terms of strength and force. The resulted soft glove is attached on the human healthy hand for assisting the finger flexion and extension. Based on the test result, the proposed system obtained the highest average for the duration of learning to work with it, which indicates user-friendliness. the parameter related to the feeling of comfort of the fingers in the glove has the lowest average due to the dense structure of the glove.

Keywords

Main Subjects


[1] C. Lambelet, D. Temiraliuly, M. Siegenthaler, M. Wirth, D.G. Woolley, O. Lambercy, R. Gassert, N. Wenderoth, Characterization and wearability evaluation of a fully portable wrist exoskeleton for unsupervised training after stroke, Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 17 (2020) 1-16.
[2] U. Jeong, H.-K. In, K.-J. Cho, Implementation of various control algorithms for hand rehabilitation exercise using wearable robotic hand, Intelligent Service Robotics, 6 (2013) 181-189.
[3] H.K. Yap, J.H. Lim, F. Nasrallah, J. Cho Hong Goh, C.-H. Yeow, Characterisation and evaluation of soft elastomeric actuators for hand assistive and rehabilitation applications, Journal of medical engineering & technology, 40(4) (2016) 199-209.
[4] J.-h. Bae, Y.-M. Kim, I. Moon, Wearable hand rehabilitation robot capable of hand function assistance in stroke survivors, in:  2012 4th IEEE RAS & EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), IEEE, 2012, pp. 1482-1487.
[5] I. Jo, J. Lee, Y. Park, J. Bae, Design of a wearable hand exoskeleton for exercising flexion/extension of the fingers, in:  2017 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), IEEE, 2017, pp. 1615-1620.
[6] L. Cheng, M. Chen, Z. Li, Design and control of a wearable hand rehabilitation robot, IEEE access, 6 (2018) 74039-74050.
[7] S. Park, M. Fraser, L.M. Weber, C. Meeker, L. Bishop, D. Geller, J. Stein, M. Ciocarlie, User-driven functional movement training with a wearable hand robot after stroke, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 28(10) (2020) 2265-2275.
[8] V. Moreno-SanJuan, A. Cisnal, J.-C. Fraile, J. Pérez-Turiel, E. de-la-Fuente, Design and characterization of a lightweight underactuated RACA hand exoskeleton for neurorehabilitation, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 143 (2021) 103828.
[9] H.K. Yap, J.H. Lim, F. Nasrallah, C.-H. Yeow, Design and preliminary feasibility study of a soft robotic glove for hand function assistance in stroke survivors, Frontiers in neuroscience, 11 (2017) 547.
[10] H.K. Yap, P.M. Khin, T.H. Koh, Y. Sun, X. Liang, J.H. Lim, C.-H. Yeow, A fully fabric-based bidirectional soft robotic glove for assistance and rehabilitation of hand impaired patients, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2(3) (2017) 1383-1390.
[11] L. Cappello, J.T. Meyer, K.C. Galloway, J.D. Peisner, R. Granberry, D.A. Wagner, S. Engelhardt, S. Paganoni, C.J. Walsh, Assisting hand function after spinal cord injury with a fabric-based soft robotic glove, Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 15 (2018) 1-10.
[12] Z.Q. Tang, H.L. Heung, K.Y. Tong, Z. Li, Model-based online learning and adaptive control for a “human-wearable soft robot” integrated system, The International Journal of Robotics Research, 40(1) (2021) 256-276.
[13] A. Yurkewich, D. Hebert, R.H. Wang, A. Mihailidis, Hand extension robot orthosis (HERO) glove: development and testing with stroke survivors with severe hand impairment, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 27(5) (2019) 916-926.
[14] A. Yurkewich, I.J. Kozak, D. Hebert, R.H. Wang, A. Mihailidis, Hand Extension Robot Orthosis (HERO) Grip Glove: enabling independence amongst persons with severe hand impairments after stroke, Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 17 (2020) 1-17.
[15] S. Adineh, M. Sadedel, M. Moghaddam, Impedance Control of a 6 DoF Robot for Upper-Limb Rehabilitation of Disabled Children Aim to Facilitate Drawing Geometrical Shapes, Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of ISME, 25(4) (2024).
[16] B. Saeedi, M. Alizadeh, M.M. Moghaddam, M. Sadedel, Design of a nonlinear backstepping versus sliding mode controller for a human musculoskeletal arm model in sagittal plane, in:  2022 8th International Conference on Control, Instrumentation and Automation (ICCIA), IEEE, 2022, pp. 1-6.
[17] A. Ghasemi, M. Sadedel, M.M. Moghaddam, A wearable system to assist impaired-neck patients: Design and evaluation, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part H: Journal of Engineering in Medicine, 238(1) (2024) 63-77.
[18] A. Javanbakht, M. Sadedel, Bevel Pipe Inspection by Snake Robot, Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of the ISME, 24(2) (2023) 5-27.
[19] A. Abbasi Moshaii, M. Mohammadi Moghaddam, V. Dehghan Niestanak, Fuzzy sliding mode control of a wearable rehabilitation robot for wrist and finger, Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, 46(6) (2019) 839-850.
[20] D. Wang, Y. Wang, B. Zi, Z. Cao, H. Ding, Development of an active and passive finger rehabilitation robot using pneumatic muscle and magnetorheological damper, Mechanism and Machine Theory, 147 (2020) 103762.
[21] J.M. Ochoa, Y. Jia, D. Narasimhan, D.G. Kamper, Development of a portable actuated orthotic glove to facilitate gross extension of the digits for therapeutic training after stroke, in:  2009 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, IEEE, 2009, pp. 6918-6921.
[22] G. Mesplié, Hand and wrist rehabilitation: Theoretical aspects and practical consequences, Springer, 2015.
[23] R. Sooraj, N. Akshay, T. Jeevan, R.R. Bhavani, Design and Analysis of a parallel haptic orthosis for upper limb rehabilitation, International Journal of Engineering and Technology, 5(1) (2013) 444-451.
[24] Y. Zhang, J. Zhao, C. Pan, H. Chang, System design of a novel active wearable finger rehabilitation robot, in:  2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), IEEE, 2017, pp. 2384-2389.