Assessment of hand kinematics and its control in dexterous manipulation

The aim of our work was to design a method for assessment and training of human hand dexterity while manipulating an object. A virtual environment was used to display a target object in various poses. The target poses were first recorded for a single person - a virtual trainer. The poses of a real object, held by the subjects included in the investigation, were assessed by a motion tracking device and displayed within the virtual environment. The subjects were asked to align the 3D images of real object and the target object. The target poses were normalized with respect to the different sizes of arms and hands. In this way all subjects were able to reach the desired target postures. Satisfactory repeatability of hand movements was observed in a single subject and across a group of twelve unimpaired subjects.