Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Additive Manufactured Pneumatic Artificial Muscle Hand Rehabilitation Orthosis

When the studies in the field of robotic hand rehabilitation were examined, it was seen that most of the studies were mainly focused on the hand / finger flexion movement. Hand/finger extension studies however were mainly suggesting a unilateral and complicated system which also do not offer possibility of active exercise. The proposed PAM (Pneumatic Artificial Muscle) was designed, and additive manufactured as a direct drive hand orthosis and analyzed by FEA (Finite Element Analysis) method. After the production stage, the orthosis was also analyzed by empirical methods and non-parametric models were created based on the results. The analyses were compared and interpreted with graphs and the results were found to be consistent.