Design of a hand exoskeleton for biomechanical analysis of the stroke hand

In this paper, the design of a hand exoskeleton system is introduced for biomechanical analysis of the stroke hand. In order to diagnose the status of the stroke hand, muscular forces associated with the finger movement need to be be estimated. The muscular forces can be estimated by a biomechanical model using moment equilibrium around finger joints, thus the required information for the moment equilibrium such as finger joint angles and external forces should be measured and applied. In this paper, a hand exoskeleton system, which can 1) measure the finger joint angles using a four-bar linkage based exoskeleton structure, and 2) apply and measure normal forces to the fingers, is designed. The performance of this design was verified by simulation and experiments with a manufactured prototype.