ASR glove: A wearable glove for hand assistance and rehabilitation using shape memory alloys

Abstract

To date, various hand exoskeleton devices have been proposed. Most of them, however, contain linkage mechanisms which are relatively weighty. This research presents a novel lightweight hand exoskeleton robot, which is called Advanced Service Robots laboratory (ASR) glove. The glove is shape memory alloy tendon-based actuated which can be utilized for both rehabilitation exercises and assistance for people with hand disability. To realize the proposed glove, after the conceptual design of the proposed robot, the kinematics and force analysis of the system are elaborated analytically and also verified using an experimental prototype of the proposed device. The study shows that the proposed system can flex and extend fingers in their range of motion and grasp objects efficiently. The resulted tool is capable to exert extremely high force levels to grasp objects in various hand configurations. Also, using a 0.25-mm shape memory alloy wire, an angular movement of 80°, 90°, and 70° can be generated at the distal interphalangeal, metacarpophalangeal, and proximal interphalangeal joints of a finger, respectively. In addition, the total grasping force more than 40 N can be produced at the tip of the fingers.