Fig. 1

Schematic of the robotic platform ETH MIKE. a Subjects are seated in front of the ETH MIKE robot, with their elbow supported on an arm rest. A wrist splint is worn to avoid any compensatory movements at the wrist. The device is inclined by \(20^{\circ }\) to minimize parallax errors. b The hand is wrapped around a handle, which is set up at the wrist neutral position (\(0^{\circ }\) wrist flexion, \(30^{\circ }\) from the middle of the device’s workspace), ensuring a comfortable resting position for the wrist. The index finger is attached to an adjustable finger module by Velcro straps. The centre of rotation of the end-effector is aligned with the MCP joint. c A tablet computer is placed above the hand, removing visual cues from the tested hand and providing an interactive graphical user interface displaying a simple gauge with a red indicator