Evaluation of manual workload in repetitive wrist and finger motion

반복적인 손목 및 손가락 작업에서의 수작업 부하 평가

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the manual workload in repetitive wrist and finger motion. To evaluate manual workload, angular displacement of the joint, EMG of the muscle and subjective rating were studied. Both wrist motion and finger motion were studied. A screw-driving task was used for the wrist motion experiment. A keyboard typing task was used for the finger motion experiment. All finger joint angles and wrist angles were measured by an angle-measuring glove($CyberGlove^{TM}$, Virtual Technologies, Inc.). Surface EMG was recorded from FCU muscle and FDS muscle simultaneously with the angle measurement. Subjective ratings of exertion were also recorded using the modified Borg's CR-10 scale. Repetition rates of 0.5, 1, 2 motions per second were used with each task. As a result, manual workload increased with increasing repetitiveness. Peak spectral magnitude and frequency components corresponded closely with joint angular displacement amplitudes and repetition rates. Results of the correlation analysis showed that there were significant correlation among EMG, frequency-weighted motion and subjective measurement. Both EMG and frequency-weighted filtering showed consistent workload estimation with increasing task frequency. Subjective ratings showed slight over-estimation of the workload as the task frequency is increased.