Design and evaluation of an one DOF finger rehabilitation device

This paper presents our second generation prototype of a magnetic resonance compatible finger rehabilitation robot. It can not only be used as a finger rehabilitation training tool after a stroke, but also to study the brain´s recovery process during the rehabilitation therapy (ReT). The finger driving mechanism in current generation is an one degrees of freedom (DOF) driving mechanism, which could overcome the disadvantage that can`t provide precise finger trajectories during flexion and extension motion existing in previous version [11]. In addition, this design can also be adjustable to different persons´ finger phalanges, as well as the gap between one finger to another can be easily changed. Furthermore, the kinematic analysis of the finger driving mechanism is detailed in this paper; Following, the describes of the control system and a self-motion control mode are presented. Finally, experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performances of this device.