Human Adaptation Towards a Force Augmenting Device: Experimental Results

Abstract

This short communication article presents an experiment to test the existence of mental workload (MWL) and adaptability of a human operator (HO) in handling force augmenting devices (FADs). An experiment is conducted where the HOs of three different ages are allowed to handle a FAD with high augmentation factor. Augmentation factor gives the factor by which the HO’s force is amplified. It is observed that the HOs were unable to stabilize the FAD for the first time. With the help of these experiments, it is observed that a human adapts itself to achieve a stable HA-FAD interaction. In another perspective, it can be observed that HO undergoes MWL to handle a FAD with high augmentation factor.

Keywords

• Force augmenting device
• adapting human
• ergonomics
• human factor
• mental workload.