Fatigue problems in remote pointing and the use of an upper-arm support

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• 作者：Kyung S. Park^a ; ^{kspark@kaist.ac.kr} ; Gi Beom Hong^a ; ^{aquaqaz@naver.com} ; ^{epichong@hyundai.com} ; Sangwon Lee^b ; ^{sangwon.advance@gmail.com}
• 关键词：Remote gesture pointing ; Orthopedic appliance ; Fatigue ; Performance ; Ubiquitous control
• 刊名：International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：83_01698141
• 类别：et
• 出版时间：May, 2012
• 卷：42
• 期：3
• 页码：293-303
• 文件大小：1073 K

摘要

Remote Gesture Pointing (RGP) has been developed as a means for controllers to perform pointing operations when the controller of a device is required to move about during the task and is not normally stationed at a fixed location. Some devices in RGP environments have been developed for such purposes, but to date little research has been reported. To contribute to addressing this issue, our study examines the muscle fatigue problems in RGP environments and proposes an orthopedic appliance (which supports the upper arm) to resolve such problems. Twelve healthy subjects participated in the experiment, which had three conditions (General Mouse Pointing (GMP), RGP with an upper-arm support (鈥楻GP with support鈥?, and RGP without an upper-arm support (鈥楻GP without support鈥?). Participants performed the multi-directional tapping tests for each condition. The experimental results indicated that the effects of time on the fatigue indexes (from each the upper trapezius and the anterior deltoid) was more prominent in the 鈥楻GP without support鈥?condition than in the other conditions. Especially in the 鈥楻GP without support鈥?condition, each of the fatigue indexes after 30聽min became significantly different with the corresponding initial values. Similarly, the subjective fatigue scores showed a common pattern in the 鈥楻GP without support鈥櫬?gt;聽鈥楻GP with support鈥櫬?gt;聽鈥楪MP鈥?order in all parts (shoulder, upper arm, forearm, and wrist and hand). The overall performance of the RGP conditions was much lower than that of the GMP condition. Also, the throughput value was significantly higher in 鈥楻GP with support鈥?than in 鈥楻GP without support鈥? These findings show that RGP has potential fatigue and poor performance problems and an orthopedic appliance supporting the upper arm can be an alternative to alleviate those problems of RGP environments to some extent. Future work is necessary to further develop an orthopedic appliance in real situations.

Relevance to industry

The method and the experimental findings in this study can be utilized as the bases for developing an orthopedic appliance to alleviate the fatigue and performance problems in real RGP environments.