Design and Evaluation of Hand-Assisted Exoskeleton for Astronauts' Extravehicular Activities

Extravehicular activity (EVA) is already an essential part of human exploration of space. Current extravehicular space suit gloves are subject to residual pressure at the joints and knitted fabric compression, which can lead to reduced dexterity of hand movement, reduced hand grip and hand fatigue i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2022 International Conference on Advanced Robotics and Mechatronics (ICARM) pp. 425 - 430
Main Authors Zhu, Aibin, Yue, Longchun, Zhang, Jing, Tu, Yao, Dang, Diyang, Zhang, Yulin
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 09.07.2022
Subjects
Exoskeletons
Kinematics
Mechatronics
Prototypes
Space exploration
Static analysis
System performance
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DOI10.1109/ICARM54641.2022.9959223

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Summary:Extravehicular activity (EVA) is already an essential part of human exploration of space. Current extravehicular space suit gloves are subject to residual pressure at the joints and knitted fabric compression, which can lead to reduced dexterity of hand movement, reduced hand grip and hand fatigue injury. To address these problems, this paper introduces a hand-assisted exoskeleton design, analyses and formulates design objectives, adopts an external artificial tendon to drive the finger, conducts a static analysis of the finger under external drive and a study of the lasso transmission characteristics, completes the overall design of the hand-assisted exoskeleton, and builds a prototype. Finally, the system performance of the hand-assisted exoskeleton was evaluated in terms of kinematics, mechanics and surface electromyogram (EMG), and the results showed that the hand-assisted exoskeleton could meet the design objectives.
DOI:10.1109/ICARM54641.2022.9959223