4 Potential for the field of service robotics In addition to industrial robotics, the ExoHand is especially suited to the service robot market, which will be characterised by rapid growth in the coming years – after all, new concepts in materials, sensors and drives have the potential to revolutionise this market. If, for example, a robot is to maintain its orientation in an everyday domestic environment in combination with the ExoHand and interact with humans in a variety of everyday situations, the human-like characteristics of the robot will be even more essential than in the production environment. With its newly developed ExoHand, Festo is thus incorporating a drive concept based on pneumatics: the eight pneumatic actuators make for precise movement while at the same time lending the ExoHand excellent properties in terms of yielding capacity and thus also of safety. But whether the service robot will find its way into our living rooms will also depend to a large extent on cost developments. Festo’s ExoHand consists of components from Festo that are already produced in large quantities and are therefore available on the market at relatively low cost. Use in medical therapy In rehabilitation, the ExoHand can be used as an active manual orthosis. In Germany alone, some 150,000 people annually suffer a stroke for the first time; many of these patients must learn to use their hands once more. Together with a brain-computer interface (BCI), the ExoHand from Festo allows a closed feedback loop to be established. The active manual orthosis can help stroke patients suffering from paralysis to regenerate the damaged connection from the brain to the hand. The stroke patient’s wish to open or close his or her hand is recorded by means of an electroencephalographic signal (EEG) that is measured on the subject’s head. The movements are carried out by the active manual orthosis. This gives rise to a training effect, which over the course of time enables patients to move their hands once more without technical assistance. With a passive manual orthosis, the chronically bent fingers of a hand are merely straightened by means of a spring; but with the ExoHand, the pneumatic cylinders actively move the patient’s fingers. Training for the brain and muscles: the ExoHand in combination with a brain-computer interface Future scenario with service robots: independent living for the elderly Already feasible today: the ExoHand in the rehabilitation of stroke patients
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