Development of a Test Protocol for Evaluating EVA Glove Performance

Testing gloved hand performance involves work from several disciplines. Evaluations performed in the course of re-enabling a disabled hand, designing a robotic end effector or master controller, or hard-suit design have all yielded relevant information, and, in most cases, produced performance test methods. Most times, these test methods have been primarily oriented toward their parent discipline. For space operations, a comparative test which would provide a way to quantify pressure glove and end effector performance would be useful in dividing tasks between humans and robots. Such a test would have to rely heavily on sensored measurement, as opposed to questionnaires, to produce relevant data. However, at some point human preference would have to be taken into account. This paper will present a methodology for evaluating gloved hand performance which attempts to respond to these issues. Glove testing of a prototype glove design using this method will be described.