Low cost soft robotic gloves for at-home rehabilitation and daily living activities

Stroke is one of the major reasons which affect the human hand functionality and lead to disability. Different repetitive exercises are used to regain the hand functionality which involves robotic exoskeleton. Soft pneumatic actuators are one of the good alternatives to rigid and fixed exoskeletons for rehabilitation. This paper presents soft robotic gloves fabricated with two different lowcost silicones which can be used in daily living activities and rehabilitation purpose. Soft robotic gloves are light weight and compact. These robotic gloves utilize the pneumatic pressure to flex and extend the human hand. Soft robotic gloves were tested on a healthy object for grasping and rehabilitation ability. Results showed that robotic glove was able to grasping and do the Kapandji test. This work presents an important step toward low cost efficient soft robotic devices for rehabilitation of stroke patients.