Date of Award

Spring 2017

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Industrial and Entrepreneurial Engineering and Engineering Management

First Advisor

Dr. Tycho Fredericks

Second Advisor

Dr. Ikhlas Abdel-Qader

Third Advisor

Dr. Steven Butt

Keywords

Portable, flexible glove, tremor, suppression, tremor suppression

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

This paper presents the work carried out in designing and developing a prototype for a tremor suppression system that reduces hand tremor by counteracting vibrations initiated from a patient’s shaking hand. This system includes a glove with a built-in vibration simulation module that oscillates and mimics the hand vibration. The oscillation is generated by a DC motor mounted on the top of the glove, and can vary in degree of vibration. The glove is also equipped with an accelerometer-gyroscope based micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) and vibrating coin motors mounted on each finger, both interfaced with a microcontroller. The microcontroller used in this design is an Arduino Uno3, the MEMS is the GY-521 model, and the vibrating coin motors are 3V DC, 10mm micro flat button motors. The design allows mounting up to four motors on each finger based on which axis the generated counteract is needed. Further, the performance modeling of the system was carried out using SerialChart software, which plots raw data received from the MEMS. The plotted data represents the X, Y, and Z vibration changes. These changes in vibration were suppressed to some extent, especially in the X axis. The placement of the vibration motors had an important role in reducing the hand tremor. The maximum vibration suppression was accomplished by using four vibration motors, two motors on each side of the finger. This motors’ arrangement demonstrated that tremor reduction is possible, and at some instances, the reduction was close to 40%.

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