Design of a robotic rehabilitation hand for optimal grasping

Abstract

Building robotic devices able to replicate the human behavior to obtain motor recovery, functional substitution or human-robot interaction as human-like as possible, is becoming increasingly popular. In the last past years several robotic rehabilitation devices demonstrate how they can improve the performance of the rehabilitation therapy performed by a human therapist in terms of action repetition and accurate tracking of the desired trajectory. A proliferation of robotic devices for gait rehabilitation applications have been manufactured. Most of them may be intimidating to patients, others may require long and involved patient setups. Using a human-like robotic device, such as a robotic arm and a robotic hand, may be fruitful. Starting with the use of a multipurpose robotic arm to be attach to the human leg to automate gait training and relieve the physical burdens placed upon therapists, we design a mechanism able to attach the robot arm to a human limb, in a fast and safety way. Afters studying grasping in industrial robot we developed a new robotic hand to be used with the robotic rehabilitation device: the Easyhand, a small. light, easy to build and to control robotic hand to be adapt to use with the multipurpose robotic arm to be attached to the human leg. This dissertation present a the design of a new robotic hand for optimal grasping in rehabilitation field.