Development of Finger-force Measuring System with Six-axis Force/moment Sensor for Measuring a Spherical-object Grasping Force

Stroke patients can't use their hands because of the paralysis of their fingers. Their fingers are recovered by rehabilitating training, and the rehabilitating extent can be judged by grasping a spherical object. At present, the used object in hospital is only a spherical object, and can't measure the force of fingers. Therefore, doctors judge the rehabilitating extent by touching and watching at their fingers. So, the spherical object measuring system which can measure the force of their fingers should be developed. In this paper, the finger-force measuring system with a six-axis force/moment sensor which can measure the spherical-object grasping force is developed. The six-axis force/moment sensor was designed and fabricated, and the force measuring device was designed and manufactured using DSP (digital signal processing). Also, the grasping force test of men was performed using the developed finger-force measuring system, it was confirmed that the average force of men was about 120N.