A Novel Soft Exoskeleton Glove for Motor Skill Acquisition Similar to Anatomical Structure of Forearm Muscles

摘要

We introduce a novel soft exoskeleton glove, which is capable of generating human-like finger joint movements with little constraints on volitional motions. Four pneumatic artificial muscles (approx. 2.5 mm in diameter weight and less than 2 g) were attached to each finger, which consists of two antagonistic pairs of the muscles (i.e. flexor and extensor) and thereby enables to control different joints of each finger independently. Implementation of this structure for all five digits resulted in the hand exoskeleton with 20 DOFs for one hand. This architecture was designed similar to the human anatomy of the forearm muscle, which eventually ensured supporting the natural, unconstrained hand motion. Furthermore, as functions of our system, we showed that it is possible to generate a pressing force of approx. 10 N and to manipulate a finger to perform high-speed tapping at approx. 10 Hz. These results suggest that the system can be used not only as a rehabilitation device but also as an instruction device for playing an instrument or sports, which requires dexterous motion control and quick performance.