A Wearable Wrist Rehabilitation Device with Vacuum-Actuated Artificial Muscles

The complex structure of the wrist joint supports the hand to complete a variety of dexterous and accurate operations in daily living, which in turn makes it vulnerable to motor injury due to stroke, sports, occupational, or traffic accidents. As a supplement to traditional medical treatment, timely and effective rehabilitation training can accelerate the recovery process of wrist motor function. The wearable rehabilitation device in this work exhibits excellent application prospects in the field of human rehabilitation training due to its inherent flexibility and safety. Inspired by the motion principle of tendons and muscles, a modular vacuum-actuated artificial muscle (VAM) is proposed, with the advantages of being lightweight and having a high contraction ratio. The VAMs are applied to the development of a wearable wrist rehabilitation device (WWRD) prototype, which can realize wrist rehabilitation training in the motion directions of extension, flexion, radial deviation, and ulnar deviation. The design concept, structural model, and motion analysis of a WWRD are introduced to provide a reference for the design and analysis of the WWRD prototype. To evaluate the performance of the WWRD, we establish the force and motion parameter models of the WWRD and carry out performance experiments. The process of wrist rehabilitation training is tested and evaluated, which indicates that the WWRD with VAMs will enhance flexibility, comfort, and safety in wrist rehabilitation training. This work is expected to promote the development of high-performance wearable wrist rehabilitation devices based on an understanding of the bionic vacuum-actuated artificial muscles.