Artificial ridged skin for slippage speed detection in prosthetic hand applications

Abstract

The human hand is one of the most complex structures in the body, being involved in dexterous manipulation and fine sensing. Traditional engineering approaches have mostly attempted to match such complexity in robotics without sufficiently stressing on the underlying mechanisms that its morphology encodes. In this work, we propose an artificial skin able to encode, through its morphology, the tactile sense of a robotic hand, characteristic to slippage events. The underlying layout consists of ridges and allows slippage detection and the quantification of slippage speed. Such encoding of slippage signal becomes suitable for relaying tactile feedback to users in prosthetic applications. This approach emphasizes the importance of exploiting morphology and mechanics in structures for the design of prosthetic interfaces. Artificial Ridged Skin for Slippage Speed Detection in Prosthetic Hand ApplicationsDana D. Damian, Harold Martinez, Konstantinos Dermitzakis, Alejandro Hernandez-Arieta and Rolf Pfeifer Abstract-The human hand is one of the most complex structures in the body, being involved in dexterous manipulation and fine sensing. Traditional engineering approaches have mostly attempted to match such complexity in robotics without sufficiently stressing on the underlying mechanisms that its morphology encodes. In this work, we propose an artificial skin able to encode, through its morphology, the tactile sense of a robotic hand, characteristic to slippage events. The underlying layout consists of ridges and allows slippage detection and the quantification of slippage speed. Such encoding of slippage signal becomes suitable for relaying tactile feedback to users in prosthetic applications. This approach emphasizes the importance of exploiting morphology and mechanics in structures for the design of prosthetic interfaces.

The role of quantitative information about slip and grip force in prosthetic grasp stability

“…In this study, we reveal the role of quantitative information about slip and grip force on grasp stability with user in the loop with the general aim to impact on the design of feedback interfaces for effective grasp with hand prosthetic systems. Specifically, this investigation directly informs the advancement of the prosthetic system, tactile sensors, and a haptic device developed by our group [15][16][17]. The study is thus twofold, investigating the effectiveness of the feedback loop of the prosthetic system in the presence of two factors: (1) quantitative information regarding two grasp cues (force, slip) and (2) noise from the artificial sensing.…”

“…First, feedback to the users is provided visually, via a graphical interface, taking advantage of the simple existing experimental platform. Second, our tactile sensors [15] are being used to factor in possible signal noise that users may experience in real scenarios of grasp instability.…”

Design of artificial skin with integrated tactile sensors for anthropomorphic robotic hands

“…The two types of fingertip shapes prepared are a tapered cylinder, and a hexahedron. Besides the human-like circle pattern designed for the next step, these four surface textures cover the most commonly used fingerprints adopted for skin design in the literature, e.g., smooth surface without ridges [7], [12], [13], [27], pillars [28]- [30] and parallel ridges [31], [32]. In the future we hope to demonstrate the benefits and drawbacks of different surface textures and shapes on the performance of our artificial skin.…”

Slipping detection and control in gripping fruits and vegetables for agricultural robot

“…Thus it is necessary for the agriculture robot to adjust the griping force in real time rather than exerting a predetermined force. Generally, in order to ensure a stable grasp with the minimum griping force, two significant problems must be solved: (i) detection of slippage of the griped objects, especially the detection of 'initial slip'; (ii) determination of the appropriate magnitude of the griping force, the strategy of exerting the force and the control method [1][2][3][4][5] .…”