1.3 Thesis Overview
2.1.5 Summary
force analysis. Since the DIP joint angle is varied with the change of the PIP joint angle, the DIP joint angle was not expressed. The only colored area shows the delivered force to the fingertip in the workspace of the proposed structure. The applied force to the fingertip,Ftip, is highly dependent on the joint angles of the finger; as the joint angles increase, the fingertip force is also decreased. As the finger flexed, the angle between the actuator module and the normal direction of the fingertip is increased, and the normal force of the fingertip is decreased. Without the PIP joint motion, the force at the fingertip is decreased from maximum 3.5 N to 1.5 N according the MCP joint angle. Also, without the MCP joint motion, the force is also decreased according to the change of the PIP joint angle. Since the normal direction of the fingertip is more dramatically changed due to both PIP and DIP joint motion, the decrease of the force by the change of the PIP joint angle is larger than that by the change of the MCP joint angle.
2.1.4.2 Force Transmission Experiment
The performance to transmit the force feedback to the fingertip was also tested using the prototype of the exoskeleton system. A wearing part of the fingertip was revised to attach a load cell(CLS- 20NA, TML [67]) at the bottom part as shown in Fig. 2-22 (a). The normal force applied to the fingertip was measured when the force feedback is generated by the actuator module. Figure 2-22 (b) shows the setup of the force transmission experiment: a subject wearing the system made three finger postures ((DIP, PIP, MCP): (0, 0, 30), (0, 0, 45), (10, 15, 30) deg) 10 times, and 3 N force was generated by the actuator module.
Figure 2-23 shows the experimental results; the solid dots and dashed lines represent average and standard deviation, respectively. Similar to the results of the kinematic analysis in previous section, the delivered force is reduced as the finger flexed. The amount of the transmitted forces were smaller than those of simulation, which may be caused by the imperfect hardware manufacturing such as joint friction. As expressed in results of the kinematic analysis and the experiment, the fingertip force is decreased as the joint angles of the finger increased.
Load cell
(a) A modified fingertip part
Load cell attached at the fingertip Force measurement program
(b) Experimental setup
Figure 2-22: Force transmission experiment
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
Force (N)
(A) (B) (C)
Joint
Posture
(A) (B) (C)
DIP 0 0 10
PIP 0 0 15
MCP 30 45 30
Posture
Figure 2-23: Normal force at the fingertip in experiment
of that of the functional ROM, it is verified that the user can make the most of the required postures to interact with objects. For the actuator modules, SEA mechanism which consists of the actuator and elastic element was applied. Considering the required stiffness and actuator module, the spring was designed manually. The measurement experiment of the contact force when the subjects grasp the object was conducted to determine the maximum force of the actuator. The motor friction was eliminated through the friction compensation algorithm to linearize the motor model, and DOB was applied to achieve accurate force mode control even with the human motion. Since the compact ac- tuator modules were attached to the dorsum of the hand, the user can move the hand and arm freely.
The actuator module generated the desired force accurately even with the stationary and arbitrary finger motions. However, the normal fingertip force was smaller than the generated on due to the drastic change in the normal direction of the fingertip as the finger is flexed.
2.2 A Wearable Hand Exoskeleton System with Finger Motion Mea- surement and Force Feedback
In previous study, since the finger structure is very complex to be worn on all phalanges, full joint ROM was not guaranteed and the transmitted force to the fingertip is distributed to other phalanges through the structure. With the proposed structure, the users with various hand sizes could not wear the system. In addition, the previous research focused only on the force feedback to the hand.
However, in order to manipulate a virtual object, the finger motions should be measured. Although
the system was designed with high wearability and portability, it was not verified by the experiment.
Therefore, a wearable hand exoskeleton was developed considering these problems.
Since the finger structure was designed as a structure in which two bent links are connected by one rotational joint and it is worn only by the fingertips unlike the previous system, full joint ROM can be guaranteed while minimizing the collision between links and the users with various hand sizes can use the system without replacing the parts. Additionally, the force is transmitted to only the fingertip through the fingertip structure and the each joint angles was measured by using the fingertip position and the finger length. Since the finger motion measurement and the force feedback were simultaneously implemented, interaction performance with VR was also evaluated.
Furthermore, although the system wearability and portability was described by only qualitative description in previous study, the system performance was also evaluated by UX evaluation in this study.
Thus, in this section, a wearable hand system with finger motion measurement and force feed- back for VR is researched. The system has simple structures worn on the fingertips and palm and guarantee full ROM for natural finger motions. In addition, the finger structure can be worn on a va- riety of finger lengths without replacing the links. The system measure 5 DOF motion of the thumb, 4 DOF motion of the index and middle finger after only one calibration posture unlike previously developed systems. The forces are controlled by an the robust control algorithm to compensate the uncertainties arising from the interaction with the user. The system performance for finger motion measurement and interaction with VR was verified by the experiment.