An Original Mechatronic Design of a Kinaesthetic Hand Exoskeleton for Virtual Reality-Based Applications

Within the new industrial era, the interaction between humans and virtual reality is spreading across our lives. The development of exoskeleton designed to enhance the immersivity of virtual reality environments has a potentially considerable social impact and arises as a hot research topic. The presented work dwells well with the subject by describing the mechatronic design process of a kinaesthetic hand exoskeleton system meant to reproduce proprioceptive stimuli coming from the interaction with a virtual reality. The presented prototype is a modular device, equipped with force and pose sensors, and driven by a Bowden-cable-based remote actuation system. Unlike similar devices, the proposed exoskeleton is specifically thought for VR interaction and is designed to be reversible while exerting up to 15 N per finger. For a more accurate rendering of kinetostatic finger stimuli, a procedure for reconstructing HMI force as a function of measured force and position signals by employing a system’s kinematic and dynamic model is presented, detailed, and followed by some preliminary tests. The results showed that the model can trace forces back to the end-effector with a percentage error below 15%.