Challenges of the project:​

The interest of this project is to fabricate a low cost, highly efficient modular design for a coetaneous haptic exoskeleton which can act as a sensor and also as an actuator to force a specific sensation which can both control the hand motion, resist motion and assist motion, moreover it can be used as a physical therapy device for hand muscle rehabilitation. In this study the design, fabrication, and control of a mechanical exoskeleton wearable glove. The system has on board sensors to be able to accurately calculate the hand geometry, inertial measurement unit (IMU) is used to have feedback on the overall hand orientation and speed, as well as rotational sensors to measure the position of each finger including the complex movement of the thumb. The glove has actuators on board such as micro servo motors to be able to simulate damping algorithms and tactile feedback with a variable gradient. This will be used to achieve the differentiation between hardness of virtual objects, such as the solidity of a rock, the springiness of a sponge, or the sudden breaking of an egg after reaching a specific force threshold. The glove can also be used as a grip aide to patients with partial nerve damage, or can be used in conjunction with EEG technology and EMG to actuate the hand of a patient with complete nerve damage of the hand. The glove was designed and fabricated. The equations of motion of the servo motors and the whole setup were derived experimentally as the setup was modeled as a four bar mechanism. A PI controller was simulated and tested on the glove to control the servo motors’ both position and speed. The results of this controller were successful theoretically and practically.