Design and development of a wearable haptic feedback device to recognize textured surfaces: Preliminary study

Tactile sensing is an important biological function. Additionally, not only humans, robotic manipulators also require tactile sensing ability to improve quality of grasping and environment perception. Regarding tele-operated robotics, object manipulation, and surface texture recognition is an important function. These sensor data should be transmitted to the operator correctly so that the operator can evaluate the griping forces, object surface conditions, and edges of an object which are governing factors for manipulation and environment exploration. Force and vibration are the key modalities which required to recognize incipient slip and surface textures correctly. For this purpose, several researches have been carried out to implement tactile feedback actuator systems. In our study, a novel method is introduced for artificial tactile feedback. The device is designed so that it can be worn on the users finger. The experimental setup consists of three pairs of micro gear motors with a belt attached to each pair. When motors in one pair are rotating in the opposite directions, user can sense the feeling of force due to tension of the belt, whilst rotation of the motors in same direction and oscillating the direction frequently gives the sensation of vibration. Having three pairs of motors, which is the specialty in this device, gives the ability to identify the correct contact location of the applied force or vibration, and also it helps for edge detection as well. According to the experimental results, this device can successfully provide combination of force and vibration sensations as well.