Evaluation of fingertip force accuracy in different support conditions of exoskeleton

This paper investigates force accuracy of a human finger in three types of support conditions of an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton augments pinching force of a wearer´s index finger in proportion to it based on surface electromyography. Three supporting manners of the pinching force are evaluated by switching a fingertip part of the exoskeleton. One is that the assistive force is applied to the wearer´s finger so that the force could be sensible by the wearer. Another case is that the assistive force is directly delivered to a grasping object without a wearer´s fingertip. The other is that a part of the force directly affects the object and the rest affects the wearer´s finger. Through pilot experiments, transitions of the accuracy through training in these cases are compared each other.