Wearable Robots: An Original Mechatronic Design of a Hand Exoskeleton for Assistive and Rehabilitative Purposes

Nicola Secciani; Chiara Brogi; Marco Pagliai; Francesco Buonamici; Filippo Gerli; Federica Vannetti; Massimo Bianchini; Yary Volpe; Alessandro Ridolfi

doi:10.3389/fnbot.2021.750385

Wearable Robots: An Original Mechatronic Design of a Hand Exoskeleton for Assistive and Rehabilitative Purposes

Front Neurorobot. 2021 Oct 21:15:750385. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2021.750385. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Nicola Secciani¹, Chiara Brogi¹, Marco Pagliai¹, Francesco Buonamici¹, Filippo Gerli², Federica Vannetti², Massimo Bianchini³, Yary Volpe¹, Alessandro Ridolfi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, Firenze, Italy.
² IRCCS Don Gnocchi, Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation, Firenze, Italy.
³ Institute for Complex Systems, National Research Council, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.

Abstract

Robotic devices are being employed in more and more sectors to enhance, streamline, and augment the outcomes of a wide variety of human activities. Wearable robots arise indeed as of-vital-importance tools for telerehabilitation or home assistance targeting people affected by motor disabilities. In particular, the field of "Robotics for Medicine and Healthcare" is attracting growing interest. The development of such devices is a primarily addressed topic since the increasing number of people in need of rehabilitation or assistive therapies (due to population aging) growingly weighs on the healthcare systems of the nation. Besides, the necessity to move to clinics represents an additional logistic burden for patients and their families. Among the various body parts, the hand is specially investigated since it most ensures the independence of an individual, and thus, the restoration of its dexterity is considered a high priority. In this study, the authors present the development of a fully wearable, portable, and tailor-made hand exoskeleton designed for both home assistance and telerehabilitation. Its purpose is either to assist patients during activities of daily living by running a real-time intention detection algorithm or to be used for remotely supervised or unsupervised rehabilitation sessions by performing exercises preset by therapists. Throughout the mechatronic design process, special attention has been paid to the complete wearability and comfort of the system to produce a user-friendly device capable of assisting people in their daily life or enabling recorded home rehabilitation sessions allowing the therapist to monitor the state evolution of the patient. Such a hand exoskeleton system has been designed, manufactured, and preliminarily tested on a subject affected by spinal muscular atrophy, and some results are reported at the end of the article.

Keywords: hand exoskeleton; home assistance; mechatronics design; robotics; telerehabilitation; wearable robot.