Preliminary study of a robotic rehabilitation system driven by EMG for hand mirroring

Robotic devices can be a viable solution in different rehabilitation activities for increasing patients' gains, providing high-frequent, repetitive and interactive rehabilitation treatments. In this paper, the design, development and preliminary characterization of a robotic system for assisted hand rehabilitation, driven by surface EMG measurements, based on the mirroring of healthy hand movements is presented. The healthy hand opening and closing is detected by the muscular activity and this is used to guide a robotic glove moving the paretic hand. The innovative aspects of the research deal firstly in the contemporaneous use of EMG signals and mirroring technique and secondly in the development of an algorithm for the automatic setting of the actuators thresholds. A preliminary system characterization was conducted. The performed tests demonstrate that the system is a viable solution to allow a healthy person to perform exercises of “hand closing” “hand opening”, with ON-OFF and proportional controls, with a success rate in tests carried out by 98%. The proposed system is a starting point for a novel approach to hand mirroring rehabilitation on patients with upper-limb motor deficits.