Introducing DANTE: a fully wearable, hybrid-architecture hand exoskeleton for multi-finger grasp assistance

Assistive hand exoskeletons must reconcile prehensile versatility and force effectiveness with wearability, and compactness and lightness, although these requirements often impose conflicting design constraints. This paper presents DANTE, a fully wearable assistive hand exoskeleton integrating five independently commanded and bidirectional digit-level flexion/extension inputs within a hybrid underactuated architecture. Each module actively drives the metacarpophalangeal joint, while a compliant element passively couples the motion of the distal phalanges to reduce actuation complexity. DANTE was assessed through an engineering-validation study involving nine healthy participants. Prehensile versatility was evaluated using 20 taxonomy-based actions, each repeated five times, with objective task-completion criteria. Across 900 grasp trials, 844 were successful, corresponding to a 93.8% trial-level success rate, and every participant completed all 20 actions within the allotted repetitions. Force effectiveness was assessed at the coupled hand–exoskeleton level using a JAMAR Plus dynamometer and synchronized forearm sEMG screening. Eight of 90 force-test repetitions were excluded because of increased forearm activation. The retained measurements yielded a mean whole-grasp force of 12.65 N and a mean maximum force of 14.50 N, with no significant increase in forearm activation relative to rest (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p = 0.5703). These findings support the feasibility of DANTE’s architecture for preserving a broad prehensile repertoire and providing stable coupled-system whole-grasp assistance under controlled healthy-user conditions. Overall, DANTE emerges as a balanced system-level solution that combines configurable multi-digit assistance with full on-limb integration, while explicitly acknowledging the associated distal-mass trade-off and the non-functional scope of the present validation.