Manual assembly processes are favoured for supporting low volume production systems, high product variety, assembly operations that are difficult to automate and manufacturing in low-wage countries. However, manual operations can dramatically impact assembly cycle times, quality and cost when the complexity of the manual operation increases. This paper proposes a method for assessing the proces...

This study examined the impact of a period of mental fatigue on manual dexterity, anticipation timing and repeated high intensity exercise performance. Using a randomised, repeated measures experimental design, eight physically trained adults (mean age = 24.8 ± 4.1 years) undertook a 40 minute vigilance task to elicit mental fatigue or a control condition followed by four repeated Wingate anaer...

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of using a pressure manometer on the delivery of target airway pressures during manual hyperinflation by student physiotherapists in the laboratory and clinical environments. Manual hyperinflations were delivered under control and feedback conditions where the feedback condition involved manual hyperinflation with a pressure manometer. Compa...

As robots are increasingly used in human-cluttered environments, the requirement of human-likeness in their movements becomes essential. Although robots perform a wide variety of demanding tasks around the world in factories, remote sites and dangerous environments, they are still lacking the ability to coordinate with humans in simple, every-day life bi-manual tasks, e.g. removing a jar lid. T...

The effects of background visual roll stimulation on postural control, manual control, and self-motion perception were investigated in this study. In the main experiment, 8 subjects were exposed to wide field-of-view background scenes that were tilted and static, continuously rotating, or sinusoidally rotating at frequencies between 0.03 and 0.50 Hz, as well as a baseline condition. The subject...

Response control in the forms of stopping and slowing responses is thought to be implemented by a frontal-subcortical network, which includes the subthalamic nucleus (STN). For manual control, stopping is linked to STN beta (13-30 Hz) and slowing responses are linked to lower frequencies (<12 Hz). Whether similar STN oscillatory activities are associated with the control of spoken responses is ...

Manual control cybernetics aims to understand and describe how humans control vehicles and devices using mathematical models of human control dynamics. This ‘cybernetic approach’ enables objective and quantitative comparisons of human behavior, and allows a systematic optimization of human control interfaces and training associated with manual control. Current cybernetics theory is primarily ba...

Tremor disabled subjects were tested in two dimensional tracking tasks. The subjects had action tremor due to various etiologies. Both continuous and discrete targets were used. Displacement sensing and force sensing joysticks were compared. The effect of filtering of the control signal was evaluated. Position and velocity control were compared. While individuals were found to benefit from vari...