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Design of a Torque Controlled Wrist and Hand Exoskeleton for Neurorehabilitation
Rehabilitation exoskeletons are used to support and correct patients during training. To provide this interaction without disturbing the movements they need to be of small footprint, lightweight and haptically transparent. The new design should improve this by incorporating bio-inspired concepts.
**Background:** Stroke is a leading cause of adult disability. There are about 64.5 million stroke survivors worldwide living with different degrees of disability. During a stroke, a part of the brain gets damaged. This often leads to a complete or partial loss of the motor function of one hemisphere. With the plasticity of the brain it is possible that neighboring healthy parts of the brain learn the function of the damaged. Functional movement therapy aims to induce this plasticity by moving the patient’s arm or assisting the patient to move. Robot-assisted therapy has the potential to improve the therapy outcome and to solve emerging issues caused by demographic ageing. Exoskeleton robots offer the control over all joints of a limb which is needed for treatment of severely to mildly affected patients.
**The Project:** We strive to develop the next generation of upper limb rehabilitation robots. Recently we commissioned a 6 DoF torque controlled shoulder and arm exoskeleton to investigate novel design and control concepts (unpublished yet, not the one in the picture). With this project we want to extend this exoskeleton by a wrist and hand module that would allow us to control all the DoF of a patient arm. The design goals of this exoskeleton are a small footprint to allow close operation to the body, precise and robust joint torque control to support and correct as desired without disturbing the patient, efficient donning and doffing, and a lightweight design. To achieve this we want to use state-of-the-art actuation systems that were developed in our labs.
**Your Task:** will be to iteratively develop kinematics and link design of the 3 DoF exoskeleton wrist. While waiting for the ordered parts to arrive, you will start with the design of a hand module that allows to actively close and open patient hands, while allowing to grasp and manipulate objects. Finally you will commission the wrist and hand to show the performance with simple controllers.
**Background:** Stroke is a leading cause of adult disability. There are about 64.5 million stroke survivors worldwide living with different degrees of disability. During a stroke, a part of the brain gets damaged. This often leads to a complete or partial loss of the motor function of one hemisphere. With the plasticity of the brain it is possible that neighboring healthy parts of the brain learn the function of the damaged. Functional movement therapy aims to induce this plasticity by moving the patient’s arm or assisting the patient to move. Robot-assisted therapy has the potential to improve the therapy outcome and to solve emerging issues caused by demographic ageing. Exoskeleton robots offer the control over all joints of a limb which is needed for treatment of severely to mildly affected patients.
**The Project:** We strive to develop the next generation of upper limb rehabilitation robots. Recently we commissioned a 6 DoF torque controlled shoulder and arm exoskeleton to investigate novel design and control concepts (unpublished yet, not the one in the picture). With this project we want to extend this exoskeleton by a wrist and hand module that would allow us to control all the DoF of a patient arm. The design goals of this exoskeleton are a small footprint to allow close operation to the body, precise and robust joint torque control to support and correct as desired without disturbing the patient, efficient donning and doffing, and a lightweight design. To achieve this we want to use state-of-the-art actuation systems that were developed in our labs.
**Your Task:** will be to iteratively develop kinematics and link design of the 3 DoF exoskeleton wrist. While waiting for the ordered parts to arrive, you will start with the design of a hand module that allows to actively close and open patient hands, while allowing to grasp and manipulate objects. Finally you will commission the wrist and hand to show the performance with simple controllers.
- short literature review of State of the Art
- develop the kinematics and link design of wrist
- develop the kinematics and link design of hand
- assemble and commission the prototype
- validate the performance by experiments with simple controllers
Controlls and mechatronic integration of the actuation modules should be straight forward and are therefore a minor part of this project.
- short literature review of State of the Art - develop the kinematics and link design of wrist - develop the kinematics and link design of hand - assemble and commission the prototype - validate the performance by experiments with simple controllers
Controlls and mechatronic integration of the actuation modules should be straight forward and are therefore a minor part of this project.
- Autonomous working
- motivated, creative
- Experience in robot design preferred
- Experience in mechanism design preferred
- Practical experience with CAD (preferably NX)
- Autonomous working - motivated, creative - Experience in robot design preferred - Experience in mechanism design preferred - Practical experience with CAD (preferably NX)
If you are interested in this project, please apply with transcripts and CV to:
Yves Zimmermann (yvesz@ethz.ch)
If you are interested in this project, please apply with transcripts and CV to: Yves Zimmermann (yvesz@ethz.ch)