Skill Evaluation from Observation of Discrete Hand Movements during Console Operation

This paper focused on discrete movements of hand in reaching actions, which necessarily occur during machine operation. The relationship between the performance of a console operation and the operator's reaching actions was investigated by applying Fitts' law and by examining a state transition of the operation. A remote operation experimental system was built using two radio controlled construction equipments, and the operator training process was analyzed empirically with those methods. The results showed the covariance of the fitting error to Fitts' law decreased as the operators' skill improved, although the fitting itself to the law was not sufficiently good. And it was confirmed that the covariance of difficulty index of the reaching action increased. These facts indicated that skill level of the discrete motion during operation can be estimated by investigating two types of the covariance.