Tailor-made hand exoskeletons for assistance and rehabilitation use

Nowadays, many are the ways in which robotics can help but unfortunately, as of today, the design of hand exoskeletons can still be considered one of the hardest task in robotics and, surely, an open point. Towards this delicate aim, the researchers of the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Florence have conceived and are developing a novel hand exoskeleton design strategy that puts the patient at the core of the process, yielding completely customized devices (both in ergonomic and control terms). These devices act on the four long fingers by means of four planar mechanisms and have a total of four actuated (flexion/extension) and four passive (abduction/adduction) degrees of freedom, two per finger.