Design of a compliant, stabilizing wrist mechanism for a pediatric hand exoskeleton

Children affected by hand impairment due to cerebral palsy or stroke experience serious difficulties when performing activities of daily life (ADL), which reduces their quality of life and development. Wearable robots such as hand exoskeletons have been proposed to support people with hand impairment in therapy as well as daily tasks. While numerous actuated wearable robots have been developed, few designs support both fingers and wrist function, despite being mutually relevant for reach-to-grasp tasks. A recent feasibility study investigating the use of PEXO, a lightweight and fully wearable pediatric hand exoskeleton, showed that a wrist fixed in a slightly extended position may limit the user’s ability to reach and grasp during ADL and restrict the user group. These insights and further interactions with clinicians inspired a novel design of PEXO that features an additional degree of freedom in the wrist. In this paper, we present a compliant wrist mechanism extending the existing leaf spring finger mechanism of the device. The novel design provides both wrist motion capability of 60° in flexion and extension and wrist stabilization at the same time while actively supporting finger motion. Preliminary results suggest that the adjustability in the wrist enables a larger variety of grasping gestures. The implemented wrist support has the potential to allow for a more versatile use of PEXO and increase the potential target user group.