Topology Optimization of Exo-Glove Poly II for Enhancing Functionality and Wearability

초록

This study presents a novel design method for the finger body of Exo-Glove Poly II (EGP II) that enhances functionality and wearability by minimizing distortion and achieving user-preferred stretchability. Minimizing distortion restores the intended flexion moment arms at the finger joints, ensuring target functionality. User-preferred stretchability minimizes constraints on the user's finger flexion, improving wearability. To satisfy these conflicting goals, the finger body as a longitudinally periodic structure and develop a corresponding unit cell-level optimization is developed. Specifically, finger body-level evaluations are converted into equivalent unit cell-level analyses. A novel metric, distortional compliance-defined as a weighted sum of unit cell-level compliances-is introduced as the optimization objective. To account for large deformation effects, a two-step optimization approach is employed: topology optimization under a linear elastic assumption, followed by size optimization considering material and geometric nonlinearities. Experimental validation considers three users with different hand sizes. Results show that the optimized designs reduce distortion by 54.9% on average compared to the previous version, while achieving target stretchability within a 4.43% error. The optimized EGP II exhibits minimal distortion, increased grasping force (15.3% on average), and user-preferred wearability, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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