291,000 people are currently living with SCI, and 60% of them have cervical level injuries leading to tetraplegia. Restoration of arm and hand function is a top priority for this population, and while some incomplete SCI patients benefit from rehab, many require assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs). Two commonly used rehabilitation/assistance techniques are rehabilitation robotics, and functional electrical stimulation (FES), but neither have proven to be effective for long-term functional assistance.

Multi-sensory haptic cues have the potential to transmit a wider variety of information in the same amount of time as single-sensory haptic cues. However, these cues also interfere with each other, causing them to feel less salient to users. As it is critical that the multisensory cues transmitted to a user are conspicuous, we use the AIMS Testbed to investigate the perception of multisensory haptic cues and how this perception changes when cues are modified.

This research project focuses on delivering haptic guidance through cutaneous (skin stretch and squeeze) methods to help train people for new tasks. Haptic devices are tremendously useful for giving customized feedback during training. These devices can simulate forces associated with real-world tasks or provide guidance forces that help users to complete the task more effectively or accurately. It has been shown, however, that providing both task forces and guidance forces simultaneously through the same haptic interface can lead to confusion and worse performance.