Development And Testing Of Hand Exoskeletons

This book describes the development of portable, wearable, and highly customizable hand exoskeletons to aid patients suffering from hand disabilities. It presents an original approach for the design of human hand motion assistance devices that relies on (i) an optimization-based kinematic scaling procedure, which guarantees a significant adaptability to the user’s hands motion, and (ii) a topology optimization-based design methodology, which allowed the design of a lightweight, comfortable device with a high level of performance. The book covers the whole process of hand exoskeleton development, from establishing a new design strategy, to the construction and testing of hand exoskeleton prototypes, using additive manufacturing techniques. As such, it offers timely information to both researchers and engineers developing human motion assistance systems, especially wearable ones.

This book reports on the design and testing of an sEMG-based control strategy for a fully-wearable low-cost hand exoskeleton. It describes in detail the modifications carried out to the electronics of a previous prototype, covering in turn the implementation of an innovative sEMG classifier for predicting the wearer's motor intention and driving the exoskeleton accordingly. While similar classifier have been widely used for motor intention prediction, their application to wearable device control has been neglected so far. Thus, this book fills a gap in the literature providing readers with extensive information and a source of inspiration for the future design and control of medical and assistive devices.

Wearable Robotics: Systems and Applications provides a comprehensive overview of the entire field of wearable robotics, including active orthotics (exoskeleton) and active prosthetics for the upper and lower limb and full body. In its two major sections, wearable robotics systems are described from both engineering perspectives and their application in medicine and industry. Systems and applications at various levels of the development cycle are presented, including those that are still under active research and development, systems that are under preliminary or full clinical trials, and those in commercialized products. This book is a great resource for anyone working in this field, including researchers, industry professionals and those who want to use it as a teaching mechanism. Provides a comprehensive overview of the entire field, with both engineering and medical perspectives Helps readers quickly and efficiently design and develop wearable robotics for healthcare applications

Designing Exoskeletons focuses on developing exoskeletons, following the lifecycle of an exoskeleton from design to manufacture. It demonstrates how modern technologies can be used at every stage of the process, such as design methodologies, CAD/CAE/CAM software, rapid prototyping, test benches, materials, heat and surface treatments, and manufacturing processes. Several case studies are presented to provide detailed considerations on developing specific topics. Exoskeletons are designed to provide work-power, rehabilitation, and assistive training to sports and military applications. Beginning with a review of the history of exoskeletons from ancient to modern times, the book builds on this by mapping out recent innovations and state-of-the-art technologies that utilize advanced exoskeleton design. Presenting a comprehensive guide to computer design tools used by bioengineers, the book demonstrates the capabilities of modern software at all stages of the process, looking at computer-aided design, manufacturing, and engineering. It also details the materials used to create exoskeletons, notably steels, engineering polymers, composites, and emerging materials. Manufacturing processes, both conventional and unconventional are discussed—for example, casting, powder metallurgy, additive manufacturing, and heat and surface treatments. This book is essential reading for those in the field of exoskeletons, such as designers, workers in research and development, engineering and design students, and those interested in robotics applied to medical devices.

Environmental conditions and pressurized spacesuits expose astronauts to problems of fatigue during lengthy extravehicular activities, with adverse impacts especially on the dexterity, force and endurance of the hands and arms. A state-of-the-art exploration in the field of hand exoskeletons revealed that available products are unsuitable for space applications because of their bulkiness and mass. This book proposes a novel approach to the development of hand exoskeletons, based on an innovative soft robotics concept that relies on the exploitation of electroactive polymers operating as sensors and actuators, on a combination of electromyography and mechanomyography for detection of the user’s will and on neural networks for control. The result is a design that should enhance astronauts’ performance during extravehicular activities. In summary, the advantages of the described approach are a low-weight, high-flexibility exoskeleton that allows for dexterity and compliance with the user’s will.

Wearable exoskeletons are electro-mechanical systems designed to assist, augment, or enhance motion and mobility in a variety of human motion applications and scenarios. The applications, ranging from providing power supplementation to assist the wearers to situations where human motion is resisted for exercising applications, cover a wide range of domains such as medical devices for patient rehabilitation training recovering from trauma, movement aids for disabled persons, personal care robots for providing daily living assistance, and reduction of physical burden in industrial and military applications. The development of effective and affordable wearable exoskeletons poses several design, control and modelling challenges to researchers and manufacturers. Novel technologies are therefore being developed in adaptive motion controllers, human-robot interaction control, biological sensors and actuators, materials and structures, etc. In this book, the editors and authors report recent advances and technology breakthroughs in exoskeleton developments. It will be of interest to engineers and researchers in academia and industry as well as manufacturing companies interested in developing new markets in wearable exoskeleton robotics.

The book reports on advanced topics in the areas of wearable robotics research and practice. It focuses on new technologies, including neural interfaces, soft wearable robots, sensors and actuators technologies, and discusses important regulatory challenges, as well as clinical and ethical issues. Based on the 4th International Symposium on Wearable Robotics, WeRob2018, held October 16-20, 2018, in Pisa, Italy, the book addresses a large audience of academics and professionals working in government, industry, and medical centers, and end-users alike. It provides them with specialized information and with a source of inspiration for new ideas and collaborations. It discusses exemplary case studies highlighting practical challenges related to the implementation of wearable robots in a number of fields. One of the focus is on clinical applications, which was encouraged by the colocation of WeRob2018 with the International Conference on Neurorehabilitation, INCR2018. Additional topics include space applications and assistive technologies in the industry. The book merges together the engineering, medical, ethical and political perspectives, thus offering a multidisciplinary, timely snapshot of the field of wearable technologies.

The availability of practical applications, techniques, and case studies by international therapists is limited despite expansions to the fields of clinical psychology, rehabilitation, and counseling. As dialogues surrounding mental health grow, it is important to maintain therapeutic modalities that ensure the highest level of patient-centered rehabilitation and care are met across global networks. Research Anthology on Rehabilitation Practices and Therapy is a vital reference source that examines the latest scholarly material on trends and techniques in counseling and therapy and provides innovative insights into contemporary and future issues within the field. Highlighting a range of topics such as psychotherapy, anger management, and psychodynamics, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for mental health professionals, counselors, therapists, clinical psychologists, sociologists, social workers, researchers, students, and social science academicians seeking coverage on significant advances in rehabilitation and therapy.