Soft Gloves: A Review on Recent Developments in Actuation, Sensing, Control and Applications

Interest in soft gloves, both robotic and haptic, has enormously grown over the past decade, due to their inherent compliance, which makes them particularly suitable for direct interaction with the human hand. Robotic soft gloves have been developed for hand rehabilitation, for ADLs assistance, or sometimes for both. Haptic soft gloves may be applied in virtual reality (VR) applications or to give sensory feedback in combination with prostheses or to control robots. This paper presents an updated review of the state of the art of soft gloves, with a particular focus on actuation, sensing, and control, combined with a detailed analysis of the devices according to their application field. The review is organized on two levels: a prospective review allows the highlighting of the main trends in soft gloves development and applications, and an analytical review performs an in-depth analysis of the technical solutions developed and implemented in the revised scientific research. Additional minor evaluations integrate the analysis, such as a synthetic investigation of the main results in the clinical studies and trials referred in literature which involve soft gloves

Underactuated Rehabilitation Robotics for Hand Function

Normal hand function plays an important role in daily life. At present, the incidence of hand dysfunction caused by diseases such as cerebral palsy or stroke is increasing year by year. For the rehabilitation of hand dysfunction, in addition to surgical treatment, effective rehabilitation exercise is also particularly important. It is also a necessary link in the efficient and intelligent development of rehabilitation medicine to develop robots that can effectively help patients with rehabilitation hand functions.In this paper, based on the analysis of the design principles and objectives of the rehabilitation robot with hand function, the kinematics model of the rehabilitation robot with hand function is constructed,based on top-down principle in the design of the machine, the design of the machine hand function rehabilitation robots design optimization process framework, and based on the kinematics model and the virtual prototype technology, build its skeleton model, and carries on the kinematics simulation analysis, the design is verified the correctness of the hand function rehabilitation robot kinematics model

SMA-based soft exo-glove

Nowadays, robotic technologies are used in many fields, one of them is medicine. The breakthrough of technologies has enabled the development of robotic devices for rehabilitation therapies. The exoskeletons can be found as robotic device for rehabilitation therapy, whose rigidity limits the users freedom of movement, complicating his interaction with the environment in an easy and natural way. To overcome this current limitation, researchers invest effort in the development of soft devices, wearable, portable and comfortable for patients, maintaining the rigid exoskeletons performance. The soft exo-glove proposed in this work, accomplishes three main previous features. It is actuated by Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) that reduce the device weight and turn it into a portable exoskeleton. The exo-glove is easier to wear and it is comfortable. The proposed exo-glove represents a safe and adaptable solution for the human hand rehabilitation therapy with special emphasis on the activities of daily living (ADL). We are going to analyze exo-glove performance during ADL movements, e.g. gripping different objects with diverse dimensions, in which, other exoskeletons have some limitations. In terms to address this challenge, a specific position controller was designed which enables the single displacement of each finger with a linear actuator precision of 5%.This work was supported in part by the “Discover2Walk: Sistema robótico para propiciar la marcha en niños pequeños con Parálisis Cerebral” under Grant PID2019-105110RB-C32/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, in part by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), in part by the R&D&I project under Grant PLEC2021-007819, in part by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and in part by European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR

a Soft Hand Exoskeleton With a Novel Tendon Layout to Improve Stable Wearing in Grasping Assistance

: We present a novel soft exoskeleton providing active support for hand closing and opening. The main novelty is a different tendon routing, folded laterally on both sides of the hand, and adding clenching forces when the exoskeleton is activated. It improves the stability of the glove, diminishing slippage and detachment of tendons from the hand palm toward the grasping workspace. The clenching effect is released when the hand is relaxed, thus enhancing the user's comfort. The alternative routing allowed embedding a single actuator on the hand dorsum, resulting more compact with no remote cable transmission. Enhanced adaptation to the hand is introduced by the modular design of the soft polymer open rings. FEM simulations were performed to understand the interaction between soft modules and fingers. Different experiments assessed the desired effect of the proposed routing in terms of stability and deformation of the glove, evaluated the inter-finger compliance for non-cylindrical grasping, and characterized the output grasping force. Experiments with subjects explored the grasping performance of the soft exoskeleton with different hand sizes. A preliminary evaluation with Spinal Cord Injury patients was useful to highlight the strengths and limitations of the device when applied to the target scenario

Design Criteria of Soft Exogloves for Hand Rehabilitation- Assistance Tasks

This paper establishes design criteria for soft exogloves (SEG) to be used as rehabilitation or assistance devices. This research consists in identifying, selecting, and grouping SEG features based on the analysis of 91 systems that have been proposed during the last decade. Thus, function, mobility, and usability criteria are defined and explicitly discussed to highlight SEG design guidelines. Additionally, this study provides a detailed description of each system that was analysed including application, functional task, palm design, actuation type, assistance mode, degrees of freedom (DOF), target fingers, motions, material, weight, force, pressure (only for fluids), control strategy, and assessment. Such characteristics have been reported according to specific design methodologies and operating principles. Technological trends are contemplated in this contribution with emphasis on SEG design opportunity areas. In this review, suggestions, limitations, and implications are also discussed in order to enhance future SEG developments aimed at stroke survivors or people with hand disabilities

Annals of Scientific Society for Assembly, Handling and Industrial Robotics 2021

This Open Access proceedings presents a good overview of the current research landscape of assembly, handling and industrial robotics. The objective of MHI Colloquium is the successful networking at both academic and management level. Thereby, the colloquium focuses an academic exchange at a high level in order to distribute the obtained research results, to determine synergy effects and trends, to connect the actors in person and in conclusion, to strengthen the research field as well as the MHI community. In addition, there is the possibility to become acquatined with the organizing institute. Primary audience is formed by members of the scientific society for assembly, handling and industrial robotics (WGMHI)

Annals of Scientific Society for Assembly, Handling and Industrial Robotics 2021

This Open Access proceedings presents a good overview of the current research landscape of assembly, handling and industrial robotics. The objective of MHI Colloquium is the successful networking at both academic and management level. Thereby, the colloquium focuses an academic exchange at a high level in order to distribute the obtained research results, to determine synergy effects and trends, to connect the actors in person and in conclusion, to strengthen the research field as well as the MHI community. In addition, there is the possibility to become acquatined with the organizing institute. Primary audience is formed by members of the scientific society for assembly, handling and industrial robotics (WGMHI)

Annals of Scientific Society for Assembly, Handling and Industrial Robotics 2021

This Open Access proceedings presents a good overview of the current research landscape of assembly, handling and industrial robotics. The objective of MHI Colloquium is the successful networking at both academic and management level. Thereby, the colloquium focuses an academic exchange at a high level in order to distribute the obtained research results, to determine synergy effects and trends, to connect the actors in person and in conclusion, to strengthen the research field as well as the MHI community. In addition, there is the possibility to become acquatined with the organizing institute. Primary audience is formed by members of the scientific society for assembly, handling and industrial robotics (WGMHI)

The Music Sound

A guide for music: compositions, events, forms, genres, groups, history, industry, instruments, language, live music, musicians, songs, musicology, techniques, terminology , theory, music video. Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color/timbre, and form. A more comprehensive list is given by stating the aspects of sound: pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration. Common terms used to discuss particular pieces include melody, which is a succession of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord, which is a simultaneity of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord progression, which is a succession of chords (simultaneity succession); harmony, which is the relationship between two or more pitches; counterpoint, which is the simultaneity and organization of different melodies; and rhythm, which is the organization of the durational aspects of music