TY - GEN
T1 - Sensory substitution via cutaneous skin stretch feedback
AU - Schorr, Samuel B.
AU - Quek, Zhan Fan
AU - Romano, Robert Y.
AU - Nisky, Ilana
AU - Provancher, William R.
AU - Okamura, Allison M.
PY - 2013/11/14
Y1 - 2013/11/14
N2 - Skin stretch is a novel haptic feedback method that can provide a human operator with information about the magnitude and direction of an applied force. To evaluate the potential for skin stretch feedback to be used as a sensory substitute for kinesthetic (force) feedback in robotic teleoperation systems, a study was conducted to measure the ability of users to discriminate environment stiffness using varying levels of fingerpad skin stretch instead of force feedback. A new, high-fidelity skin stretch feedback device was developed that imposes tangential fingerpad skin stretch in proportion to the intended level of force feedback. In psychophysical experiments, users received skin stretch feedback with magnitude proportional to the users' penetration depth into a virtual wall. Users' stiffness discrimination capability using skin stretch was comparable to that of using force feedback. Furthermore, larger skin stretch cues were perceived by users as portraying greater stiffness without any advance training, which indicates that skin stretch feedback would be an intuitive sensory substitute for force feedback. Thus, skin stretch feedback is a promising method for conveying kinesthetic force information in applications such as robot-assisted surgery, where high levels of force feedback may not be desirable due to stability or safety concerns.
AB - Skin stretch is a novel haptic feedback method that can provide a human operator with information about the magnitude and direction of an applied force. To evaluate the potential for skin stretch feedback to be used as a sensory substitute for kinesthetic (force) feedback in robotic teleoperation systems, a study was conducted to measure the ability of users to discriminate environment stiffness using varying levels of fingerpad skin stretch instead of force feedback. A new, high-fidelity skin stretch feedback device was developed that imposes tangential fingerpad skin stretch in proportion to the intended level of force feedback. In psychophysical experiments, users received skin stretch feedback with magnitude proportional to the users' penetration depth into a virtual wall. Users' stiffness discrimination capability using skin stretch was comparable to that of using force feedback. Furthermore, larger skin stretch cues were perceived by users as portraying greater stiffness without any advance training, which indicates that skin stretch feedback would be an intuitive sensory substitute for force feedback. Thus, skin stretch feedback is a promising method for conveying kinesthetic force information in applications such as robot-assisted surgery, where high levels of force feedback may not be desirable due to stability or safety concerns.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84887270436&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630894
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630894
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84887270436
SN - 9781467356411
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 2341
EP - 2346
BT - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2013
T2 - 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2013
Y2 - 6 May 2013 through 10 May 2013
ER -