Design and Control of an Underactuated Finger Exoskeleton for Assisting Activities of Daily Living

In this article, a novel underactuated finger exoskeleton is designed to assist grasping tasks for the elderly with weak muscle strength. In mechanical design, the human finger’s phalanges and joints are considered as part of the kinematic chains to realize the human-robot kinematic compatibility. The proposed finger exoskeleton achieves the finger preshaping and grasps objects with generic shapes. The proposed exoskeleton is both actively and...