A tendon-driven glove to restore finger function for disabled

An innovative glove system actuated by electric motors has been developed to restore finger functions for disabled people. This glove system is composed of a leather glove having external tendons built-in, an actuation unit and a sensor to detect user's intentions for finger operations. Fingers are operated by actuation of the thin tendons made of polyethylene. The driving force of the tendon is transferred to the glove from the actuation unit by using bowden cables. It was demonstrated that the glove system can drive user's paralyzed fingers. The details of the system and results of the evaluation experiments are reported in this paper.