Wearable Sensors for Spatio-Temporal Grip Force Profiling

TL;DR

This paper presents a wearable sensor glove system for real-time monitoring and analysis of spatio-temporal grip forces during precision tasks, revealing differences related to user skill and time.

Contribution

It introduces a novel wearable wireless sensor glove system for detailed grip force profiling during a robot-assisted task.

Findings

Grip force profiles differ between users based on skill level.

Sensor data shows temporal changes in grip force during tasks.

Specific grip force patterns are associated with expertise.

Abstract

Wearable biosensor technology enables real-time, convenient, and continuous monitoring of users behavioral signals. Such include signals relative to body motion, body temperature, biological or biochemical markers, and individual grip forces, which are studied in this paper. A four step pick and drop image guided and robot assisted precision task has been designed for exploiting a wearable wireless sensor glove system. Individual spatio temporal grip forces are analyzed on the basis of thousands of individual sensor data, collected from different locations on the dominant and non-dominant hands of each of three users in ten successive task sessions. Statistical comparisons reveal specific differences between grip force profiles of the individual users as a function of task skill level (expertise) and time.