A Novel Design of a Multi-DOF Mobile Robotic Helping Hand for Paralyzed Patients

A mobile robotic helping hand can help paralyzed and handicapped people to live a normal life than what they are often subjected to. The goal of this research is to design a robotic helping hand that can help paralyzed patients who cannot move lower part of the body. It is a Multi-DOF (Multiple Degrees of Freedom) robotic hand mounted on a robotic cart where both are controlled wirelessly by hand gestures. The activity and outfit of robotic hand look like a human hand. The Bluetooth transmitter circuits are mounted on a pair of hand gloves. The left glove is used for the cart and the right one is for the robotic arm. The sensors (gyroscopes, flex sensors and potentiometers) sense the patient's hand, wrist, palm and finger movement. The transmitter circuit sends the collected data wirelessly to the receiver circuits mounted on the robotic cart and hand. The robotic arm copies the patient's movement and gestures in real time. The designed system can be used to grab and move things and also for cooking and babysitting. This device can make the lives of paralyzed and handicapped people more comfortable and independent. It is a novel integrated solution that offers many different functionalities in a low-cost implementation.