Designing and modeling of an index finger exoskeleton in interaction with post-stroke patients´ hand

Post-stroke patients usually suffer from lower and upper limbs disorders, which require intense rehabilitation therapies, among which hand function restoration is of a higher significance. This paper introduces the procedure of designing and modeling a novel finger-exoskeleton module (for each finger) in interaction with patients´ hand. In this study, our aim is to develop a biomimetic structure that is compatible with anthropomorphic kinematics. Shape memory alloy (SMA) wires were employed to actuate the exoskeleton which makes the system lightweight, compact, and easy to use during daily life activities (DLAs). The overall system was modeled in MATLAB Simulink. The simulations show promising results that encourage us to develop and implement the module for clinical trials. Comprehensiveness of the simulation in this paper allows us to further analyze the system by adding new features to the system.