Development of a 2DOF robotic device for hand rehabilitation

Abstract

Most of the stroke survivors lose hand and arm skill which can be partially recovered through intensive rehabilitation. Studies show that robot-assisted rehabilitation is e ective, providing a more motivating environment and a better assessment of the patient than traditional rehabilitation. The goal of this master thesis is to develop a cheap, portable and commercially viable grasping and pronation/supination movements rehabilitation robot based on an existing prototype, the ReHapticKnob. The built device interacts with the human hand through two nger supports. The device has two independently actuated and lockable degrees of freedom (DoF): the translational DoF a ects hand opening and closing and the rotational DoF a ects hand rotation. The device is controlled via a laptop programmed by LabView and implementing an admittance control scheme. The nger supports are able to exert a continuous force of 35 N and 1.3 Nm on the user's hand. Furthermore, the device control can make the supports resistance to be moved by the hand almost imperceptible if desired, which permits the device to render a wide variety of virtual scenarios at the haptic level.