• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2009

Recently, importance of the rehabilitation of hand pathologies as well as the development of high-technology hand robot has been increased. The biomechanical model of hand is indispensable due to the difficulty of direct measurement of muscle forces and joint forces in hands. In this study, a three-dimensional biomechanical model of four fingers including three joints and ten muscles in each finger was developed and a mathematical relationship between neural commands and finger forces which represents the enslaving effect and the force deficit effect was proposed. When pressing a plate under the flexed posture, the muscle forces and the joint forces were predicted by the optimization technique. The results showed that the major activated muscles were flexion muscles (flexor digitorum profundus, radial interosseous, and ulnar interosseous). In addition, it was found that the antagonistic muscles were also activated rather than the previous models, which is more realistic phenomenon. The present model has considered the interaction among fingers, thus can be more powerful while developing a robot hand that can totally control the multiple fingers like human.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.15 no.4 s.97
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• pp.404-411
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• 2005

To increase accurateness and reliability of the evaluation of power tool vibration transmitted to an operator, it is necessary to measure the grip and feed forces during the measurement of hand-transmitted vibration. In the study a system was invented to measure the vibration and the grip and/or feed force, which consists of a measurement handle and a PC with a data acquisition system and the corresponding software. Strain gauges and an accelerometer were mounted on the handle surface for the simultaneous measurement of the forces and the vibration. The program in the system makes it possible to monitor the grip and feed force during the tool operation so that the operator keeps the applying forces within the pre-determined range. Investigating the vibration total values, frequency-weighted root-mean-square accelerations at the handle, obtained in repetition for each power tool with control of the grip and feed force showed more consistency than those measured without force control. By using the system the experimenter can reduce random error of the measured vibration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.689-694
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• 2004

To increase accurateness and reliability of the evaluation of power tool vibration transmitted to an operator, it is necessary to measure grip and feed forces during the measurement of hand-transmitted vibration. In the study a system was invented to measure the vibration and the grip and/or feed force, which consists of a measurement handle and a PC with data acquisition system and the software. Strain gauges and an accelerometer were mounted on the handle for the simultaneous measurement of the forces and the vibration. The program in the system makes it possible to monitor the grip and feed force during the tool operation so that the operator keeps the applying forces within the pre-determined range. Investigating the vibration total values, frequency-weighted root mean square accelerations at the handle, obtained at various conditions with control of the grip and feed force showed more consistency than those measured without force control. By using the system the experimenter can reduce uncertainty of the measured vibration.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.361-370
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• 2016

Objective:The aim of this study is to evaluate contributions of individual finger forces associated with various levels of submaximal voluntary contraction tasks. Background: Although many researches for individual finger force have been conducted, most of the studies mainly focus on the maximal voluntary contraction. However, Information concerning individual finger forces during submaximal voluntary contraction is also very important for developing biomechanical models and for designing hand tools, work equipment, hand prostheses and robotic hands. Due to these reasons, studies on the contribution of individual finger force in submaximal grip force exertions should be fully considered. Method: A total of 60 healthy adults without any musculoskeletal disorders in the upper arms participated in this study. The young group (mean: 23.7 yrs) consisted of 30 healthy adults (15 males and 15 females), and the elderly group (mean: 75.2 yrs) was also composed of 30 participants (15 males and 15 females). A multi-Finger Force Measurement (MFFM) System developed by Kim and Kong (2008) was applied in order to measure total grip strength and individual finger forces. The participants were asked to exert a grip force attempting to minimize the difference between the target force and their exerted force for eight different target forces (5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, and 75% MVCs). These target forces based on the maximum voluntary contraction, which were obtained from each participant, were randomly assigned in this study. Results: The contributions of middle and ring fingers to the total grip force represented an increasing trend as the target force level increased. On the other hand, the contributions of index and little fingers showed a decreasing trend as the target force level increased. In particular, Index finger exerted the largest contribution to the total grip force, followed by middle, ring and little fingers in the case of the smallest target force level (5% MVC), whereas middle finger showed the largest contribution, followed by ring, index and little fingers at the largest target force levels (65 and 75% MVCs). Conclusion: Each individual finger showed a different contribution pattern to the grip force exertion. As the target force level increase from 5 to 75% MVC, the contributions of middle and ring fingers showed an increasing trend, whereas the contributions of index and little fingers represented a decreasing trend in this study. Application: The results of this study can be useful information when designing robotic hands, hand tools and work equipment. Such information would be also useful when abnormal hand functions are evaluated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.871-872
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• 2008

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.198-202
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• 2020

Purpose: This study examined the effects of a paraffin treatment with exercise on the muscle strength and fatigue of the hand according to the use of smartphones. Methods: The measurement subjects were 30 healthy males in their 20s who were divided randomly into the control and paraffin treatment groups. A typing exercise using a smartphone was performed. The pinch grip force was measured to evaluate the muscle strength of the thumb, and muscle fatigue analysis using electromyography was performed to analyze muscle fatigue. Results: The functional changes to the arm and the fatigue of the hand through the use of a smartphone were examined to determine the effects of the paraffin treatment. The dominant hand-pinch grip force test did not show a significant difference, but the non-dominant hand-pinch grip force test showed a significant difference between the groups (p=0.030). In the dominant hand fatigue test, there was a significant difference between the groups (p=0.037). In the non-dominant hand, there was a significant difference between time (p=0.012) and the groups (p<0.001). Conclusion: The effects of paraffin intervention on the hand muscle strength and fatigue due to repeated use of the smartphone were confirmed. These results can be used as a basis for clinical use and can be a guide for the correct use of smartphones, which are essential in modern life.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1996.10b
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• pp.139-142
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• 1996

This paper presents a method of controlling contact force for deburring tasks. The cope with the nonlinearities and time-varying properties of the robot and the environment, a neural network control theory is applied to design the contact force control system. We show that the contact force between the hand and the contacting surface can be controlled by adjusting the command velocity of a robot hand, which is accomplished by the modeling of a robot and the environment as Mass-Spring-Damper system. Simulation results are shown.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.94-103
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• 2019

The optimal grasping point of the object varies depending on the shape of the object, such as the weight, the material, the grasping contact with the robot hand, and the grasping force. In order to derive the optimal grasping points for each object by a three fingered robot hand, optimal point and posture have been derived based on the geometry of the object and the hand using the artificial neural network. The optimal grasping cost function has been derived by constructing the cost function based on the probability density function of the normal distribution. Considering the characteristics of the object and the robot hand, the optimum height and width have been set to grasp the object by the robot hand. The resultant force between the contact area of the robot finger and the object has been estimated from the grasping force of the robot finger and the gravitational force of the object. In addition to these, the geometrical and gravitational center points of the object have been considered in obtaining the optimum grasping position of the robot finger and the object using the artificial neural network. To show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, the friction cone for the stable grasping operation has been modeled through the grasping experiments.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.100-107
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• 2016

To realize a robot hand interacting like a human hand, there are many tactile sensors sensing normal force, shear force, torque, shape, roughness and temperature. This sensing signal is essential to manipulate object accurately with robot hand. In particular, slip sensors make manipulation more accurate and breakless to object. Up to now several slip sensors were developed and applied to robot hand. Many of them used complicate algorithm and signal processing with vibration data. In this paper, we developed novel principle slip sensor using separation layer. These two layers are moved from each other when slip occur. Developed sensor can sense slip signal by measuring this relative displacement between two layers. Also our principle makes slip signal decoupled from normal force and shear force without other sensors. The sensor was fabricated using the NBR(acrylo-nitrile butadiene rubber) and the Ecoflex as substrate and a paper as dielectric. To verify our sensor, slip experiment and normal force decoupling test were conducted.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.404-414
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• 2000

This paper addresses the development of a 3-fingered humanoid robot hand system and a real-time grasp synthesis of multifingered robot hands to find grasp configurations which satisfy the force closure condition of arbitrary shaped objects. We propose a fast and efficient grasp synthesis algorithm for planar polygonal objects, which yields the contact locations on a given polygonal object to obtain a force closure grasp by the multifingered robot hand. For an optimum grasp and real-time computation, we develop the preference and the hibernation process and assign physical constraints of the humanoid hand to the motion of each finger. The preferences consist of each sublayer reflecting the primitive preference similar to the conditional behaviors of humans for given objectives and their arrangements are adjusted by the heuristics inspired from human's grasping behaviors. The proposed method reduces the computational time significantly at the sacrifice of global optimality, and enables the grasp posture to be changable within two-finger and three-finger grasps. The performance of the presented algorithm is evaluated via simulation studies to obtain the force-closure grasps of polygonal objects with fingertip grasps. The architecture suggested is verified through experimental implementation to our robot hand system by solving the 2- or 3-finger grasp synthesis.