An Adaptive Hand Exoskeleton for Teleoperation System

• Published in: Chinese journal of mechanical engineering Vol. 36; no. 1; pp. 60 - 12
• Main Authors: Wei, Wei, Zhou, Bangda, Fan, Bingfei, Du, Mingyu, Bao, Guanjun, Cai, Shibo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Springer Nature Singapore 05.05.2023; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Edition: English ed.
• Subjects: Chains; Closed loops; Contact force; Electrical Machines and Networks; Electronics and Microelectronics; Engineering; Engineering Thermodynamics; Exoskeletons; Fingers; Force-reproduction; Hand (anatomy); Hand exoskeleton; Heat and Mass Transfer; Human motion; Humanoid; Humanoid dexterous hand; Instrumentation; Kinematics; Machines; Manufacturing; Mechanical Engineering; Mechanism and Robotics; Motion capture; Original Article; Power Electronics; Processes; Real time; Remote control; Servomotors; Task complexity; Teleoperation; Teleoperators; Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; Teleoperation; Hand exoskeleton; Motion capture; Force-reproduction; Humanoid dexterous hand
• ISSN: 2192-8258; 1000-9345; 2192-8258
• DOI: 10.1186/s10033-023-00882-w

Teleoperation can assist people to complete various complex tasks in inaccessible or high-risk environments, in which a wearable hand exoskeleton is one of the key devices. Adequate adaptability would be available to enable the master hand exoskeleton to capture the motion of human fingers and reproduce the contact force between the slave hand and its object. This paper presents a novel finger exoskeleton based on the cascading four-link closed-loop kinematic chain. Each finger has an independent closed-loop kinematic chain, and the angle sensors are used to obtain the finger motion including the flexion/extension and the adduction/abduction. The cable tension is changed by the servo motor to transmit the contact force to the fingers in real time. Based on the finger exoskeleton, an adaptive hand exoskeleton is consequently developed. In addition, the hand exoskeleton is tested in a master–slave system. The experiment results show that the adaptive hand exoskeleton can be worn without any mechanical constraints, and the slave hand can follow the motions of each human finger. The accuracy and the real-time capability of the force reproduction are validated. The proposed adaptive hand exoskeleton can be employed as the master hand to remotely control the humanoid five-fingered dexterous slave hand, thus, enabling the teleoperation system to complete complex dexterous manipulation tasks.