Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES 2017)

IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP17AWO-ART, ISBN:978-1-5090-5013-0

A Wearable Soft Pneumatic Finger Glove with

Antagonistic Actuators for Finger Rehabilitation

Sitangshu Chatterjee Debjit Hore Aman Arora

Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering
National Institute Institute of Technology National Institute Institute of Technology Research Institute
Durgapur-713209, India Durgapur-713209, India Durgapur-713209, India
Email: sitangshugk95@gmail.com Email: debjithore@gmail.com Email: amanarora13@gmail.com

Abstract—Loss of grasping ability in stroke patients can be
partially cured through regular rehabilitation exercises. This
paper aimed at the design and development of a soft robotic
finger glove capable of producing two necessary motions for
rehabilitaion- flexion and extension, by making use of antagonistic
soft actuators. The glove was characterized through a series of
experiments to study its variance in bending angle and force
output with pressure. The glove showed a maximum bending
angle of 68◦ and a maximum force of 120gf corresponding to
an internal pressure of 30kP a. The developed finger glove seems
to be a promising device that may improve the quality of life
of stroke survivals and help them in hand rehabilitation in the
comfort of their home.
Keywords—Soft Robotics, Finger Rehabilitation, Soft Actuators.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Soft Robots with their inherent compliance, self actuation,
low power consumption, and ease of fabrication as compared
to traditional actuators and rigid robotic framework, are clearly
the way to the future of robotics. Soft robots also allow for
safe interaction with surroundings, especially human beings.
Hence, there has been an increasing interest of researchers to
incorporate soft robotics for rehabilitation purposes.
One particular area of interest has been the use of soft bend-
ing actuators for finger and hand rehabilitation. Many patients
suffer from partial or complete loss of mobility and gripping
abilities due to stroke and chronic palsy every year. Passive
rehabilitation exercises can help restore normalcy partially. The
primary motions desirable for finger rehabilitation are flexion
and extension, as shown in Fig. 1. Rigid body systems such
as that of HEXORR by Schabowsky et. al [1] which use
traditional actuators such as motors and rigid transimission sys-
tems have been in existence for quite sometime.Existing soft
robotic systems aimed at achieving passive flexion by fixing
soft bending actuators like PneuNets bending actuators or Fiber
reinforced bending actuators on the fingers.Work towards this
objective of employing soft robots for rehabilitation started as
early as 1999 with Lee et. al [2] which made use of pneumatic
artificial muscles. Polygerinos et. al [3] developed a soft fiber-
reinforced actuator that was capable of achieving a variety of
motions namely bending, contracting, extending,and twisting
depending on the wrapping of the kevlar fiber Polygerinos
et. al [4] developed a soft Pneumatic glove for rehabilitation
and assistive purposes that uses PneuNets Bending actuators
for providing passive bending motion for flexion. Polygerinos
et. al [5] also developed a rehabilitation glove using 1 DOF
fiber reinforced actuator Yap et. al [6] developed a soft hand
exoskeleton for hand assistive and rehabilitation applications.
The exoskeleton was made of pneumatic actuators with vari-
able stiffness and was capable of performing various therapy
exercises due to its ability to take various shapes.Al-Fahaam et.
al [7] developed a wearable soft robot based on soft Pneumatic
actuators for power assistance as well as rehabilitation. Their
proposed system had a release mechanism that left one of the
fingers without assistive muscles and took feedback from it for
releasing the hand after gripping something, when required.
Zhang et. al [8] developed a 3D printable soft gripper for
hand rehabilitation which made use of topology optimization
to enhance performance of the gripper finger.
While all of the systems are able to perform passive
flexion for rehabilitation, most of them do not have an effi-
cient mechanism for the extension [4],[6],[8]. Extension is of
utmost importance in rehabilitation exercises in stroke patients,
because most patients do not have the strength to actively
open up their fingers once curled, mainly due to hypertonia
in the extensor tendon. Although Al-Fahaam et.al developed a
mechanism that had a release mechanism, it was uncontrolled
and mainly for assistive purpose that helped in gripping and
released all fingers at once [7]. Zhang et. al also had the
problem of material failure at high input pressures[8].
To overcome these, we came up with a novel idea of
developing a soft robotic finger glove that was made up
of antagonistically places soft actuators. When flexion was
Fig. 1: Desired motions for Passive Finger Rehabilitation-
Flexion and Extension

978-1-5090-5013-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 341

 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES 2017)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP17AWO-ART, ISBN:978-1-5090-5013-0

desired, the top half actuator was actuated, and when extension
was desired, the bottom half actuator was actuated. This
sequence of flexion and extension was capable of producing
the required gestures for rehabilitation exercises. To the best of
the author’s knowledge, no finger rehabilitation exists currently
that uses antagonistic soft actuators for providing active motion
for both flexion and extension motions of a finger. This concept
would be extended for developing a soft hand glove with
similar 5 fingers and palm, capable of providing active full
hand rehabilitation.
The rest of the paper is arranged as follows: Section II gives
an overview of the design and methodology of the finger glove,
Section III provides an insight into the details of fabrication Fig. 2: CAD model of the glove- exploded view without end
of the glove,Section IV shows the FEA modeling of the glove, caps
Section V shows the control setup and Section VI demonstrates
the Experimental Results of the glove along with a case study
and Section VII mentions the scope of future work.

II. D ESIGN
The bidirectional glove consisted of two semi-cylindrical
antagonistic actuators. Each actuator consisted of concentric
semi-cylinders with internal and external diameters of 22mm
and 36mm respectively, and an air channel of length 90mm
and width 3mm running throughout the length of the actuator.
The inner and outer cylinders were made of two different
materials having different shore hardness, with the outer cylin- Fig. 3: CAD model of the mold for each semi-cylinder
der made of softer material, and the inner cylinder made of
harder material. The assembled glove was wrapped with Kevlar
fiber wires all around its circumference to prevent excessive
and was left to cure in the oven for 4 hours at a temperature
radial expansion when air is pushed inside the air channel.
of 70◦ C . The cured segment were then taken out of the
Galloway et. al [9] and Connolly et. al [10] had worked on
oven. The semi-cylinders thus formed were then positioned
the effects of sheathing the actuator in a braided nylon sheath
on a flat surface and were joined to a common elastic base
and varying fiber angles on the actuator bending.In this case,
using Ecoflex 00-30. The developed semi-cylinder formed the
simple bending was desired and hence the outermost cylinder
half of our actuators and was end capped, and two such semi-
had double helical grooves of 0.05mm radius, 1mm pitch and
cylindrical actuators were joined using suitable fiber wrappings
3◦ helix angle. These grooves would essentially act as guides
to obtain the whole finger glove. Fig. 4 shows a completely
for wrapping the Kevlar fiber wires. CAD models of the glove
assembled finger glove consisting of two antagonistic actuators
were made on commercially available software SolidWorks
and reinforced with fibers.
(Dassault Systems). Fig. 2 shows the CAD model of the finger
glove.
IV. FEA M ODELLING
When air is pushed inside the air channel, the outer cylinder
expands more than the inner cylinder due to its lower shore To predict the bending of the soft glove, Finite Element
hardness. Due to this differential expansion at the two surfaces, Analysis (FEA) was done using Abaqus (Dassault Systems).
it provides a bending motion towards the inner cylinder, since
the outer cylinder has greater expansion.

III. FABRICATION
The actuator was fabricated by pouring commercially avail-
able silicone into the developed 3D printed molds. The molds
were 3D printed using Dimension 1200es 3D printer.Fig 3
shows the CAD models of the molds.
Two part silicone Ecoflex 00- 30 (Smooth-On Inc.) was
used to fabricate the outer cylinder. The inner cylinder was
fabricated using Dragon Skin 30 (Smooth-On Inc.). The fabri-
cation procedure of the two cylinders using the two different
materials was essentially the same. Two parts of the silicone
(A:B=1:1) were mixed in equal proportion. They were then
degassed in a vacuum chamber until there was no visible air Fig. 4: Completely assembled finger glove
bubbles. The degassed silicone was then poured into the mold

978-1-5090-5013-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 342

 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES 2017)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP17AWO-ART, ISBN:978-1-5090-5013-0

Fig. 5: FEM of the glove with one side actuated

Fig. 7: Trajectory of tip of glove

The top half of the actuator body was assigned material

Ecoflex 00-30 and lower part was assigned material Dragon 1N4001 diode was used. Fig. 6 shows the control setup of the
Skin 10. Neo-Hookean model was used to duplicate the non- pneumatic glove.
linear behaviour of the hyperelastic material. The Kevlar fiber
winding was attached to the actuator body using tie constraints VI. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
and assigned values of Young’s Modulus 31067M P a and
Poisson’s ratio 0.36. Linear elasticity behaviour was assigned Characterization of the finger glove was carried out through
to the windings. Fig. 5 shows an intermediate deformed shape a series of experiments to study the trajectory of the glove tip,
with a bending angle of 43◦ when an air pressure of 15kP a as well as study the variance in its bending angle and force
was applied to one of the air channels, whereas the other output with internal applied pressure.
remains passive, which resulted in bending. A maximum
bending angle of 70◦ was expected for an input pressure of A. Trajectory
30kP a.
One half of the glove was supplied with air pressure, and
the trajectory of the tip of the glove was plotted after analysis
V. C ONTROL using video analysis software (Kinovea). Fig.7 shows the x
The developed soft pneumatic finger glove was controlled and y co-ordinates of the glove tip with increasing pressure.
using an Arduino Uno micro-controller. The air supply was
given via a 6V DC diaphragm air pump. Two 12V DC solenoid B. Bending Angle
valves were used to regulate the air flow in and out of the glove,
To study the variance of bending angle with internal
when valve 1 was on, valve 2 was off, and hence air flowed
pressure, the glove was supplied with incremental air pressure,
from the pump into the actuator, giving it the desired flexion
increasing in steps of 2kP a. The air pressure was regulated
motion. When extension was desired, valve 2 was turned on
using an air pressure sensor (Festo). The angle formed by the
and valve 1 was off, and hence air would flow from inside
tangents at the two ends of the glove was analysed using video
the actuator out into the atmosphere. To regulate the different
devices acting at different voltages in the control setup, an
LM2596S Switching Voltage regulator was used. To meet the
high power requirements, a TIP120 transistor along with a

Fig. 6: Control Setup for the Glove Fig. 8: Maximum bending angle attained by glove

978-1-5090-5013-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 343

 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES 2017)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP17AWO-ART, ISBN:978-1-5090-5013-0
Fig. 9: Variation of Bending Angle with Pressure
tracking software (Kinovea) and recorded for each pressure
step. Air pressure was kept on increasing until the bending
angle reached a plateau, and the maximum bending angle was
observed to be 68◦ corresponding to an internal pressure of
30kP a. Fig. 8 shows the maximum bending angle attained by
the finger glove, and Fig. 9 shows the variation of the bending
angle as a function of internal air pressure.
C. Force Output
To study the variance of force output exerted by the glove
tip with internal pressure, a similar setup was used in which the
glove was supplied with incremental air pressure, increasing
in steps of 2kP a. The force output was measured by a F/T
sensor for each pressure step. Once again, air pressure was
kept on increasing and the maximum output force was 120gf
corresponding to an internal pressure of 30kP a. Fig. 10 shows
the maximum force output attained by the tip of the finger
glove, and Fig. 11 shows the variation of the force output as
a function of internal air pressure.
Fig. 10: Maximum force output by glove
978-1-5090-5013-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Fig. 11: Variation of Force Output with Pressure
D. Case Study
The soft robotic rehabilitation finger glove was tested on
the index finger of a healthy adult to test its effectiveness.
Fig.12 shows the subject wearing the glove.
The test subject was made to wear the glove on his index
finger, and the actuator was slowly pressurized to a pressure
of 30kP a. The glove was able to show significant bending of
the finger for active flexion when air was pushed into the air
channel in the upper half of the actuator. For extension, the
upper air channel was depressurized and simultaneously, the
air channel in the lower half of the actuator was pressurized.
The glove was able to efficiently exhibit extension motion in
the finger as well. Fig. 13 shows the variation of bending angle
achieved in the glove when the subject was wearing the glove.
Fig. 14 shows the corresponding trajectory of the tip of the
glove. The reduction in the maximum bending angle can be
attributed to the resistance provided by the finger inside the
glove, which also prevents the inflation of the glove to a certain
degree.
Fig. 12: Finger glove tested on a healthy adult
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 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES 2017)
IEEE Xplore Compliant - Part Number:CFP17AWO-ART, ISBN:978-1-5090-5013-0
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Fig. 13: Variation of Bending Angle with Pressure worn by a
healthy adult [6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
Fig. 14: Trajectory of glove tip worn by subject
VII. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORK
This work was a first attempt to develop a soft robotic
finger glove for rehabilitation, in which both flexion and
extension of a finger could be carried out using a single glove.
This was an improvement over most existing rehabilitation
gloves and exosuits that are capable of only flexion motion.
Tests performed on a healthy adult showed that the glove, when
worn, can obtain a maximum bending angle of 33◦ . Thus,
the developed glove proved to be quite efficient in real life
scenarios.
Future work would include design modifications to incor-
porate five such finger gloves to build a complete rehabilitation
glove for the entire hand , as well programmable bend radius
for more mimetic bending of the fingers.
VIII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank Mr. Amit Kumar,CSIR-
CMERI, Durgapur and Miss Vaneshi Ramdhony, NIT, Durga-
pur for their valuable inputs during the course of the research.
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