Exo-Glove: Technology that Enables People with Hand Disabilities to Grasp

Recently, owing to the rapidly increasing number of individuals suffering from spinal cord injury (SCI) and stroke, many wearable devices have been developed to assist with activities of daily living (ADLs) or to help rehabilitation. But there is still a big gap between the users and the technologies that are available, to cope with the wide variety of needs for the people with disability to live an independent life.  Seoul National University Biorobotics Lab has been developing technologies that can meet the unmet needs of the people with disability. Examples include a device that can be used to pressure the belly of people who lost the ability to use their abdominal muscles to help them breath, speak and even sing and a simple glove that can be worn by people who cannot move their fingers to enable them to hold various objects.    

In this presentation, we will present Exo-Glove Poly, a polymer based soft wearable robot for the hand that enables people who lost their hand function to grasp various objects with their hand. Exo-Glove Poly is built using polymer for comfort of the user and easy sanitization. Exo-Glove Poly is composed of wearable part and actuation unit. Design features to allow adjustment to different hand sizes and to protect users from injury were implemented.  By restoring the hand function with this assistive technology, we hope that more people with disability will be able to live a better independent life.