A pulse-sensing robotic hand for tactile arterial palpation

Palpation is the general process of using hands to examine different parts of the body, especially while diagnosing a disease or illness. For example, fingers can be used to “palpate” a pulse generated by the heart when an artery is compressed against a bone (e.g., palpating the radial artery at the wrist). We present in this paper our development of a “palpation robotic hand” (PRH) that has 3 fingers capable of acquiring pulse information from human wrists. A direct application of the PRH can be in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Conventionally, researches on sphygmopalpation of TCM are focused on pulse analysis rather than pulse recording methods. The actuation and sensing mechanism have always been either neglected or treated as less important issues. The PRH presented in this paper is developed with the intention to significantly improve the understanding and preserve the skills of sphygmopalpation. The system has three human-mimetic robotic fingers which can be individually actuated and generate different levels of fingertip pressures. At the fingertips, flexible capacitive tactile sensors were mounted to record human pulses at the wrists. Four-dimensional (4-D) pulse information, which includes both temporal and spatial domains, can be retrieved.