Design New Cable System to Drive Exoskeleton Fingers for Rehabilitation

Anthropomorphic robotic hand has always been one of the interesting topics for researchers in recent decades due to its application range, including space exploration, medicine, military, etc. In this paper, a new plan is designed to drive exoskeleton fingers and by means of which the fingers can not only mimic human-like movements, but also be lightweight and portable. In this way, before implementation of the new plan, the anatomy of index finger and related kinematic were studied to give a hand to the extraction of angle relationships among distal, middle, and proximal phalanges. In upcoming step, theories, and mathematical relations about replacing sheaths and its influence on bending joints, based on the coupling mechanisms, were explained and applied clearly. Additionally, considering extracted relationships and equations in prior section, a new model of robotic finger with mentioned properties was simulated in MSC ADAMS software. In following step, after linking the software with Matlab, the results of the simulation and comparing them with human finger in the configuration and generation of humanoid movements were discussed. In the last step, according to simulation results, an example was constructed and presented, using a 3D printer in accordance with the proposed mechanism.