Abstract
Authors have been developing an electric prehention orthosis for people suffering from paralysis on their fingers. One feature of this orthosis is that the orthotic part to be put on user's hand is extremely compact and light in weight. This is because the actuation unit is separated from the orthotic part. Two strings in flexible tubes are used to connect the actuation unit to the orthotic part and work as a driving force transmission mechanism. The other feature is that the grip force can be continuously adjusted by users anytime as they want. The user's intention of finger operation is detected by an original sensor that can detect muscle activity over clothes. Based on the user's intention an electric motor in the control unit is actuated thus user can operate his/her fingers with well controlled operation force. The detail of the prototyped system and results obtained from some evaluation tests are reported in this paper.
