Analysis of Finger Movements Using a Musculoskeletal Model for Skill Evaluation

There are various skills that involve the use of hands, such as the hand processing of skilled craftsmen and medicine. To transfer on these skills, it is necessary to visualize tacit knowledge, such as the knack and feeling of the skilled technique. Evaluation of skills has been carried out in the past, overseas by Bernstein et al., who used a motion analysis system to analyze the movements of skilled craftsmen, and in Japan, by analyzing the performance techniques of pianists. However, these methods are limited to kinematic analysis and do not evaluate the strength or feeling of the hand technique. In addition, there are measurement methods such as vocational aptitude tests to evaluate hand techniques, but all of these methods evaluate hand techniques only by the test results and cannot evaluate the kinematics or dynamics of the hand. One method to evaluate human motor skills is musculoskeletal simulation analysis, which represents the human skeleton as a rigid body and models muscles with springs and dampers, but there are no examples of analysis of the fingers. In this study, we report on the development of a simulation analysis software that includes the hand and fingers.