Comparative Study: Virtual Fixtures and Shared Control for Rehabilitation of Fine Motor Skills

The work presented here discusses the experimental results from comparing virtual fixtures (VF) and shared control (SC) techniques for rehabilitation of fine motor skills. A prior concept called haptic attributes was used to design the shared control assistance algorithm. Eight trajectories were chosen from the VMI test book and were used to train a candidate's non dominant hand using recorded samples from their dominant hands. The results were analyzed with respect to errors for time of completion, RMS position errors, magnitude of forces and shape of trajectory. Results indicate that VF and SC control sets perform similarly for simple trajectories with SC performing better for more complex trajectories