A Novel Exoskeleton System Based on Magnetorheological Fluid for Tremor Suppression of Wrist Joints

Pathological tremor is caused by a variety of neurological diseases. Although it is not life-threatening, it brings great inconvenience to patients. Traditional treatments including medication, rehabilitation programs and deep brain stimulation (DBS) have shown limited effectiveness along with risks and side effects. In order to overcome the limitations of these treatments, a new method, wearable exoskeleton technology, is introduced that aims to provide a new solution for tremor management. Based on this method, a wrist tremor suppression exoskeleton (WTSE) is developed in this research. A magnetorheological (MR) fluid damper is designed for controllable damping force and an embedded acquisition platform is used to acquire real-time tremor information. The total weight of the WTSE is 262.13 g and the maximum sustained damping force reaches 8 N. The prototype is wearable and the damping force is real-time adjustable. According to preliminary results, the signal acquisition system can obtain reliable data and the WTSE can reduce the amplitude of acceleration and angular velocity of simulated tremor by 60.39% and 55.07%, respectively.