Design of a Soft Exoskeleton with Motion Perception Network for Hand Function Rehabilitation

Hand dysfunction seriously affects patients’ activities of daily life. Rehabilitation exoskeleton can effectively improve the hand function of patients and reduce the burden of their families. However, most of the existing exoskeletons lack the ability to detect the state of hands during rehabilitation, which is a potential safety risk for rehabilitation. In order to improve the safety of hand function rehabilitation training, we proposed a soft wearable exoskeleton equipped with motion perception network. The soft exoskeleton is composed of guided bending bellows actuators, and has good mechanical properties. Besides, the soft bending sensor used to build the perception network has high measurement accuracy. The results showed that the soft exoskeleton with motion perception network not only realizes the full range of finger motion, but also measures the angle of each joint during the movement process. Therefore, this device can improve the rehabilitation effect, avoid secondary injury during rehabilitation training, and meet the rehabilitation needs of patients with hand dysfunction.