Extensible Bidirectional Bending Soft Robot for Hand Functional Rehabilitation Training

Soft robot has the advantage of good flexibility, high safety and portability in hand function rehabilitation training. In order to solve problems such as poor fit between soft robot and human hand, insufficient DOF and low driving force, this paper designed a soft robot with bidirectional bending module and elongation module, which can realize independent or coupled motion of multiple DOF. Using the FEM analysis method, soft driver model was established and a variety of flexible materials were used to ensure that it can provide sufficient driving force. The sensor was used to track the bending characteristics. Experiment results have verified that soft robot can complete grip and gesture training, and meet the training requirements of patients at different rehabilitation stages. The fingertip force can reach 5.1N and play an auxiliary role in the daily hand rehabilitation training of patients.