Though mechanical aspects of upper-limb prosthesis technology is rapidly advancing, these devices lack a sense of touch required for dexterous manipulation and exploring environments. We aim to address this concern by developing non-invasive technology to provide missing touch sensations in prosthetic limbs via sensory substitution with modular add-on devices separate from the prosthesis.
Technology for upper-limb prostheses is rapidly advancing, to the point where multi-articulated myoelectic prosthetic arms capable of complex movement are commercially available. However, these devices still lack the touch feedback needed for dexterous manipulation. We aim to address this concern by developing non-invasive technology to replace missing touch sensations in prosthetic limbs via sensory substitution. Most current sensory substitution devices function as modular add-on devices, separate from the prosthesis.
Supported by NIH Award R01NS081854 under the National Robotics Initiative (NRI)
Video: https://youtu.be/eMZWX7vnFE4
Researchers aim for 'direct brain control' of prosthetic arms
Engineers work to design prosthetic arm that allows amputees to feel what they touch
http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=15983&SnID=1928481914
Engineering researchers at four U.S. universities are embarking on a four-year project to design a prosthetic arm that amputees can control directly with their brains and that will allow them to feel what they touch. While it may sound like science fiction, the researchers say much of the technology has already been proven in small-scale demonstrations.
The research at Rice University, the University of Michigan, Drexel University and the University of Maryland is made possible by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation's Human-Centered Computing program.
Prior research has shown that the direction of a user’s focus affects the perception of tactile cues. Additionally, user agency over touch stimulation has been shown to affect tactile perception. With the development of more complicated haptic and multi-sensory devices, simple tactile cues are rarely used in isolation and the effect of focus direction and of user agency on the perception of a sequence of tactile cues is unknown. In this study, we investigate the effect of both of these variables, focus direction and agency, on the perception of a cue sequence.
Vibrotactile sleeves and multimodal armbands show promise as devices that can transmit information to a user through the tactile sense. In this way, individuals have the potential to receive information haptically when typical auditory or visual channels are preoccupied or unavailable. To achieve this, individuals must successfully learn the mapping between haptic cues and informational icons through cross-modal associative learning. The success of this process is limited by perceptual capabilities of users, as well as lack of neural markers to quantify the success of haptic learning.
Our sense of touch offers a useful mode of communication through haptics that can augment the often-crowded visual and auditory pathways, but haptic devices have yet to be fully integrated into garments and other soft wearables in a way that maintains the compliance and comfort of everyday clothing, resulting in a barrier to widespread adoption.
Affective haptics is an emerging field that is dedicated to the creation, analysis, and evolution of systems for capturing, conveying, and rpocessing emotions through tactile sensation. This project is focused on the application of affective haptics in emotion regulation. Emotion regulation techniques are utilized in mental health treatments for mood and anxiety disorders. We are utilizing haptics with emotionally evocative qualities to act as a biofeedback mechanism for those utilizing these techniques.
There has been growing interest in using haptic devices to enhance virtual experiences or to increase the amount of information transferred to a user by wearable devices. As such, the haptics community has proposed a wide range of wearable haptic devices, often featuring multi-sensory cues that convey vibration, squeeze, twist, or skin stretch.
MISSIVE - Multisensory Interface of Stretch, Squeeze and Integrated Vibration Elements
MISSIVE incorporates skin stretch, squeeze and vibration cues presented simultaneously to the user in distinct patterns. The use of multisensory cues allows us to design large discrete cue sets while maintaining a small and wearable form factor. With MISSIVE, we demonstrated language transmission via haptic phonemes, or units of sound encoded as haptic cues consisting of vibration, radial squeeze, and lateral skin stretch components.