Non-Motorized Hand Exoskeleton for Rescue and Beyond: Substantially Elevating Grip Endurance and Strength

Robotic hand exoskeletons hold immense potential for enhancing human hand functionality, addressing the hand’s strength limitations and fatigue during physically-demanding tasks. However, most existing hand exoskeletons are motorized, being weak in generating high supporting force for gripping aug- mentation. We present a nonmotorized hand exoskeleton based on magnetorheological (MR) actuators to provide high gripping support and elevate grip endurance. Meanwhile, it ingeniously har- nesses human energy for actuation and energy storage, enhancing grip strength without external power. The MR actuator demon- strates a peak holding force of 1046 N with merely 5 W power in- put,boastingaforce-to-powerratioone-order-of-magnitudehigher than conventional approaches, and 97.7% energy reduction for same holding force compared to other approaches. Participants wearing the hand exoskeletons experience a 41.8% enhancement in grip strength without external power and reduced hand muscle fatigue during prolonged physical labor. In rescuing scenarios such Received 21 February 2025; revised 25 May 2025; accepted 29 June 2025. Date of publication 15 July 2025; date of current version 11 August 2025. This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 52005474, Grant 52105081, and Grant U21A20119, in part by USTC start-up funding under Grant KY2090000067, in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant WK2480000009, in part by Student’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Foundation of USTC under Grant CY2022G01, and in part by the Royal Society Newton International Fellowship under Grant NIF\R1\211458. This article was recommended for publication by Associate Editor Ana Luisa Trejos and Editor Patrick M. Wensing upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. (Xianlong Mai and Jian Yang contributed equally to this work.) (Corresponding authors: Weihua Li; Guolin Yun; Shuaishuai Sun.) This work involved human subjects or animals in its research. Approval of all ethical and experimental procedures and protocols was granted by the Medical Research Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of USTC under Application No. 2023KY239, and performed in line with the declaration of Helsinki. Xianlong Mai, Lei Li, Shiwu Zhang, Guolin Yun, and Shuaishuai Sun are with the CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Insti- tuteofHumanoidRobots,SchoolofEngineeringSciences,UniversityofScience and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China (e-mail: ygl@ustc.edu.cn; sssun@ustc.edu.cn). Jian Yang is with the School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China. Bin Zi is with the School of Mechanical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China. Xinglong Gong is with the CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China. Weihua Li is with the School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic, and Biomedical Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia (e-mail: weihuali@uow.edu.au). This article has supplementary downloadable material available at https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2025.3588750, provided by the authors. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2025.3588750 as postearthquake rescue, debris clearance, and casualty evacua- tion, our exoskeleton effectively supports gripping and improves working efficiency.