Abdelhafiz Mohammed H, Spaich Erika G, Dosen Strahinja, Lotte N S Andreasen Struijk
IEEE Int Conf Rehabil Robot. 2019 Jun;2019:1073-1078. doi: 10.1109/ICORR.2019.8779547.
A new tendon driven mechanism, embedded into a soft hand exoskeleton for rehabilitation and assistance, was proposed in this study. The proposed solution was a pulley flexion mechanism inspired by the human musculoskeletal system to enable a natural and comfortable finger flexion. A biomechanical constraint for the finger flexion motion states that the relation between the proximal interphalangeal joint angle of the finger should always be flexed around 1.5 times the distal interphalangeal joint angle. The study aimed to comply with this constraint, by simultaneously distributing the forces over the distal and middle finger phalanges. For evaluation, the voluntary and exoskeleton flexions were compared based on the relation between the proximal and distal interphalangeal joint angles. The results showed that during the exoskeleton flexion the relation between the interphalangeal joints complied with the biomechanical constraint, where the proximal interphalangeal joint angle was 1.5 times larger than the distal interphalangeal joint. This ensures that the mechanism flexes the finger comfortably. The proposed solution is therefore a promising design for a novel soft exoskeleton that will be used for training and assistance of patients with hand paralysis.
本研究提出了一种新型腱驱动机制，该机制嵌入用于康复和辅助的软质手部外骨骼中。所提出的解决方案是一种受人体肌肉骨骼系统启发的滑轮屈曲机制，以实现自然舒适的手指屈曲。手指屈曲运动的生物力学约束表明，手指近端指间关节角度与远端指间关节角度之间的关系应始终保持在远端指间关节角度的1.5倍左右。该研究旨在通过同时将力分布在手指远端和中间指骨上来符合这一约束。为了进行评估，基于近端和远端指间关节角度之间的关系比较了自主屈曲和外骨骼屈曲。结果表明，在外骨骼屈曲过程中，指间关节之间的关系符合生物力学约束，其中近端指间关节角度比远端指间关节角度大1.5倍。这确保了该机制能舒适地弯曲手指。因此，所提出的解决方案对于一种新型软质外骨骼来说是一个有前景的设计，该外骨骼将用于手部瘫痪患者的训练和辅助。
