Design and development of wearable upper extremities powered exoskeleton - A cost-effective rehabilitation system

This paper describe the design and development of Upper Extremities Powered Exoskeleton of Four-Degree of Freedom (4 DOF) which is developed utilizing the McKibben Artificial Muscles. Such systems will be useful in the field of rehabilitation, and provides additional strength in lifting capabilities to ordinary individuals. Main purposes of the system are to rehabilitate post-stroke individual, and secondly, to increase lifting capabilities of individual that requires high level of lifting forces. The developed system is capable of generating various upper-extremities motions with force-generating capabilities. The system was developed with a budget of USD 300. Hence, such system will be an affordable, and cost-effective solution for such exoskeleton system.