Development of cylindrical type finger-force measuring system for measuring grasping finger-force of human

Stroke patients and so on can't use their hands because of the paralysis of their fingers. Their fingers can be recovered by rehabilitating training, and the rehabilitating extent can be judged by grasping a spherical object. At present, the used the 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 cylindrical-type force measuring system which can measure the force of their fingers should be developed. In this paper, the cylindrical type finger-force measuring system with a five-axis force/moment sensor which can measure the grasping finger-force is developed. The five-axis force/moment sensor is designed and fabricated, and the force measuring device for detecting the output of the sensor is designed and manufactured using DSP (digital signal processing). Also, the grasping force tests of men are performed using the developed cylindrical type finger-force measuring system, it was confirmed that the average force of men's right hand was about 218N, and that of left hand was 199N.