Modeling and control of a soft-rigid hybrid robotic glove for hand rehabilitation and assistance

Soft robotic gloves have merits on assisting individuals with hand pathologies to perform continuous exercises to hand-functions restoration, which could accelerate the rehabilitation process and reduce costs. However, most of the soft gloves are composed of silicone-based actuators, whose time-consuming fabrication process and relatively low output force limit the development of soft robotic gloves. In this paper, we propose a novel design of a robotic glove based on soft-rigid hybrid joint actuators. We first introduce structures and working principles of each functional part of the glove in detail and then present the comprehensive theoretical modeling of the deformation and force response of the novel actuator which were experimentally validated. Furthermore, we evaluate the performances of the proposed robotic glove. The results show that the theoretical model can accurately predict the force-pressure response of the hybrid actuator. Besides, the proposed 10-DoF robotic glove is able to assist various training exercises and grasping various objects with different hand postures. This paper focuses on the modeling and control of a novel soft-rigid hybrid robotic glove, which will have an impact on the development of soft robots and wearable devices.