Human-Exoskeleton Kinematic Calibration to Improve Hand Tracking for Dexterous Teleoperation

Abstract: Hand exoskeletons are critical tools for dexterous teleoperation and immersive manipulation interfaces, but achieving accurate hand tracking remains a challenge due to user-specific anatomical variability and donning inconsistencies. These issues lead to kinematic misalignments that degrade tracking performance and limit applicability in precision tasks. We propose a subject-specific calibration framework for exoskeleton-based hand tracking that uses redundant joint sensing and a residual-weighted optimization strategy to estimate virtual link parameters. Implemented on the Maestro exoskeleton, our method improves joint angle and fingertip position estimation across users with varying hand geometries. We introduce a data-driven approach to empirically tune cost function weights using motion capture ground truth, enabling more accurate and consistent calibration across participants. Quantitative results from seven subjects show substantial reductions in joint and fingertip tracking errors compared to uncalibrated and evenly weighted models. Qualitative visualizations using a Unity-based virtual hand further confirm improvements in motion fidelity. The proposed framework generalizes across exoskeleton designs with closed-loop kinematics and minimal sensing, and lays the foundation for high-fidelity teleoperation and learning-from-demonstration applications.