Perpustakaan Digital ITB

With the gradual rise of global stroke incidence, an increasing number of people are losing years of healthy life through disability or death. An unfortunate yet prominent effect of stroke is the loss of fine motor function in a patient's hands, which causes the inability to perform activities of daily living in a person's life. Research has been conducted on the use of robotic aids to help rehabilitate stroke patients, with an increasing number of these designs favouring exoskeletons with fluidic elastomer soft actuators as these typically are less complex, cheaper to manufacture, and generally more ergonomic. Nevertheless, commercially available soft robotic exoskeletons are unable to move their patient's fingers independently of each other, which in turn limits the patient's recovery as independent finger movement is a crucial aspect of fine motor functions. Through analysing previously published designs and leveraging the experimental design methodology, a functional system capable of independent finger movements for bilateral hand rehabilitation is designed. The system uses a closed-loop Proportional, Integral, and Derivative control system with pressure sensors as its feedback. The system is overall quite performant in controlling its pressure values with rise times ranging from 0.6 – 0.65s and settling times ranging from 1.05 – 2s. The system’s accuracy in mirroring movements, however, is still suboptimal as it maps the angle of the trigger to the operational pressures of the glove. The root mean squared error of the system’s mirroring response ranges from 53.24 – 81.55 degrees. This approach induces a significant amount of variability due to the compressibility of air.