Soft Rehabilitation Exoskeleton

Wearable hand robots namely hand exoskeletons can be used for rehabilitation, assistive, power amplification, and haptic feedback purposes. With help of soft robotics, these systems are safer and more comfortable for human-robot interaction, lighter in weight, and cheaper. 

Role of Advanced Textile Materials

The role of textile materials in soft robotics is being realized with recent developments in the field. Woven and knitted fabric structures are the most universal ones. Knitted fabrics being highly elastic in multiple directions makes them a great choice for creating soft bending actuators. For this exoskeleton prototype, we also borrowed a technique from the clothing sector to further improve the bending capability of our actuators: Elastic Bands.

The actuators on the glove are so strong that, they can lift a heavy iron without a hand in the glove.

For more information please check the poster and the journal paper below.