Design of a prono-supination mechanism for activities of daily living

Abstract

This paper describes the design process of a mechanism for assisting the movements of pronation and supination of the forearm. The device is designed to be part of an assistive robotic exoskeleton, which is being developed within the AIDE project. The distinctive feature of this mechanism is that it satisfies a number of technical requirements needed to perform activities of daily living such as eating or serving water from a bottle. This will need a special approach in order to modify and adapt commercial and generic components for the requested application, so that it results in an inexpensive and reliable device.