DESIGN OF OPTIMUM GRIP AND CONTROL AREA FOR ONE-HANDED MANUAL CONTROLDEVICES

The objective of this paper was to make a design specification of the control area in dual tasks of the hand grip and manual control. The gr ip postures were analyzed for three types of hand tools. An experiment was performed to measure the position of the fingers and the maximum finger forces at 4 different postures for nine subjects. It was found out that the finger forces were significantly affected by the subjects , the fingers, and the grip postures. The maximum force of women was 6 2% of men's. From the experiment, the primary control area was defined as 10 similar to 13cm and the secondary control area as 8 similar to 12cm from the wrist origin. The preferred hand posture of the index an d the middle fingers was found to be 30 similar to 45 degrees at metac arpophalangeal joint and 40 similar to 50 degrees at proximal interpha langeal joint. It was also found out that the design of one-handed man ual control devices should include the characteristics of the user, gr ip posture, finger force, and the control arrangement.