Robotic Exoskeleton Glove System Design and Simulation for Patients With Brachial Plexus Injuries

This paper presents a novel robotic exoskeleton glove system for patients who suffer from brachial plexus injuries. The robotic exoskeleton glove systems takes advantage of our previously designed rigid coupling hybrid mechanism (RCHM) concept that was used for the index finger mechanism design of the exoskeleton glove. The finger mechanism utilizes the single degree of freedom case of the RCHM that combines a rack-and-pinion mechanism and offset-slider-crank mechanism as the rigid coupling mechanism. The serial and special arrangement enables the design of each finger mechanism of the glove with reduced degrees of freedom while more closely imitating the human hand motion. The exoskeleton glove is designed to assist patients with hand disabilities in daily activities, and as such, it is optimized to be compact, lightweight, and portable, and includes modulated electronics for everyday use. The control system contains low-level motor control and high-level human-machine interface components, which enable safe and intuitive control of the exoskeleton glove, thereby enhancing the user’s ability to perform various daily activities. A high-level user interface voice activation is also integrated into the system. The paper also describes a simulation environment that was developed using MATLAB Simscape and was designed to test out and optimize different control algorithms.