Optimization problem of motion speed and muscle fatigue for development of the typing assisting device

Abstract

Hemiplegic patients often have reduced typing speed due to finger paralysis. Our motivation is to develop a keyboard that enables their typing speed to increase. For this purpose, we have developed a three-dimensional keyboard that reduces the distance that fingers move while typing. In this paper, our objective was to construct the finger model that combines the motion speed and muscle fatigue for design of keyboard that can be typed with fast motion speed and low muscle fatigue. In experiment, we measured the finger position using a magnetic 3D motion device and EMG when the participant pressed the proposed key. The experiment was carried out in a variety of the finger postures. We qualified the motion speed and muscle fatigue at each joint angle. Then, we weighted and combined two of the objective functions. We found out the Pareto solution and get an effective keyboard design straight. In the future, we verify the typing speed and finger muscle fatigue during typing the three-dimensional keyboard that is designed based on our finger model.

Keywords

• finger model
• motion analysis
• motion speed
• muscle fatigue
• keyboard
• human interface