For many animals processing of tactile information is a crucial task in behavioral contexts like exploration, foraging, and stimulus avoidance. The leech, having infrequent access to food, developed an energy efficient reaction to tactile stimuli, avoiding unnecessary muscle movements: The local bend behavior moves only a small part of the body wall away from an object touching the skin, while ...

This paper proposes a new tactile sensor capable of automatically adjusting the sensitivity of each sensor unit, depending upon the contact information. Suppose a strain gauge based tactile sensor composed of multiple sub-sensor units and a single AD-DA port. For such a sensor system, we introduce two key components; the Analyzer, how to determine the contact force quickly from each sub-sensor ...

The estimation of object’s weight is a very challenging problem due to limitations on tactile technology and robust and fast controllers that can adapt to friction state changes. In this article we study the weight estimation using skin-like tactile sensors, which provide accurate 3 dimensional force measurements on the finger tips of Vizzy, a robot with human-like hands. The sensor reading fro...

Classical methods to estimate the dynamics of a robot in presence of external contacts rely on joint-torque sensing, estimation of the contact position and accurate system identification. While the contact position can be estimated by whole body tactile sensors, this approach requires a kinematic spatial calibration, which is prone to errors. As an alternative to classical model-based approache...

Recently, haptic devices have been successfully incorporated into the human-computer interaction model. However, a drawback common to almost all haptic systems is that the user must be attached to the haptic device at all times, even though force feedback is not always being rendered. This constant contact hinders perception of the virtual environment, primarily because it prevents the user fro...

Recently, haptic devices have been successfully incorporated into the human-computer interaction model. However, a drawback common to almost all haptic systems is that the user must be attached to the haptic device at all times, even though force feedback is not always being rendered. This constant contact hinders perception of the virtual environment, primarily because it prevents the user fro...

We present a novel microfabrication process for realizing a new type of flexible sensory "smart skin". In this work, we focus on demonstration of a skin containing a two dimensional array of tactile sensors using polyimide and metal strain gauges. A novel polymer microfabrication approach coupled with surface release methods is demonstrated. The process yields flexible sensory skins in a low co...

Recently, haptic devices have been successfully incorporated into the human-computer interaction model. However, a drawback common to almost all haptic systems is that the user must be attached to the haptic device at all times, even though force feedback is not always being rendered. This constant contact hinders perception of the virtual environment, primarily because it prevents the user fro...

In this paper we present an innovative haptic device that combines the electro-tactile stimulation with the force and visual feedbacks in order to improve the perception of a virtual world. We discuss the sensation evoked in a user by the haptic, force, and the visual interface as provided by this device, implemented as a special glove, equipped with sensors and actuators connected to a PC. The...

The design of a tactile shape display intended for Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is presented. It consists of 32 micro brushless motors arranged in a 4-by-8 configuration, and the total size is 27 mm × 20 mm × 18 mm. The main restrictive design parameter is the size of the display as it will be attached to a laparoscopic grasper. Modularity is also crucial since it might be desirable to do e...