The field of rehabilitation robotics has emerged to address the growing desire to improve therapy modalities after neurological disorders, such as a stroke. For rehabilitation robots to be successful as clinical devices, a number of mechanical design challenges must be addressed, including ergonomic interactions, weight and size minimization, and cost–time optimization. We present additive manufacturing (AM) as a compelling solution to these challenges by demonstrating how the integration of AM into the development process of a hand exoskeleton leads to critical design improvements and substantially reduces prototyping cost and time.
Issue Section:
Novel Applications of Design for AM
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