Texture recognition using force sensitive resistors

This paper presents the results of an experiment that inves- tigates the presence of cues in the signal generated by a low-cost force sensitive resistor (FSR) to recognise surface texture. The sensor is moved across the surface and the data is analysed to investigate the presence of any patterns. We show that the signal contain enough information to recognise at least one sample surface

Sensors for Robotic Hands: A Survey of State of the Art

Recent decades have seen significant progress in the field of artificial hands. Most of the surveys, which try to capture the latest developments in this field, focused on actuation and control systems of these devices. In this paper, our goal is to provide a comprehensive survey of the sensors for artificial hands. In order to present the evolution of the field, we cover five year periods starting at the turn of the millennium. At each period, we present the robot hands with a focus on their sensor systems dividing them into categories, such as prosthetics, research devices, and industrial end-effectors.We also cover the sensors developed for robot hand usage in each era. Finally, the period between 2010 and 2015 introduces the reader to the state of the art and also hints to the future directions in the sensor development for artificial hands

deForm: An interactive malleable surface for capturing 2.5D arbitrary objects, tools and touch

We introduce a novel input device, deForm, that supports 2.5D touch gestures, tangible tools, and arbitrary objects through real-time structured light scanning of a malleable surface of interaction. DeForm captures high-resolution surface deformations and 2D grey-scale textures of a gel surface through a three-phase structured light 3D scanner. This technique can be combined with IR projection to allow for invisible capture, providing the opportunity for co-located visual feedback on the deformable surface. We describe methods for tracking fingers, whole hand gestures, and arbitrary tangible tools. We outline a method for physically encoding fiducial marker information in the height map of tangible tools. In addition, we describe a novel method for distinguishing between human touch and tangible tools, through capacitive sensing on top of the input surface. Finally we motivate our device through a number of sample applications

AllSight: A Low-Cost and High-Resolution Round Tactile Sensor with Zero-Shot Learning Capability

Tactile sensing is a necessary capability for a robotic hand to perform fine manipulations and interact with the environment. Optical sensors are a promising solution for high-resolution contact estimation. Nevertheless, they are usually not easy to fabricate and require individual calibration in order to acquire sufficient accuracy. In this letter, we propose AllSight, an optical tactile sensor with a round 3D structure potentially designed for robotic in-hand manipulation tasks. AllSight is mostly 3D printed making it low-cost, modular, durable and in the size of a human thumb while with a large contact surface. We show the ability of AllSight to learn and estimate a full contact state, i.e., contact position, forces and torsion. With that, an experimental benchmark between various configurations of illumination and contact elastomers are provided. Furthermore, the robust design of AllSight provides it with a unique zero-shot capability such that a practitioner can fabricate the open-source design and have a ready-to-use state estimation model. A set of experiments demonstrates the accurate state estimation performance of AllSight

PDMSkin – On-Skin Gestures with Printable Ultra-Stretchable Soft Electronic Second Skin

Innovative enabling technologies are key drivers of human augmentation. In this paper, we explore a new, conductive, and configurable material made from Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) that is capillary doped with silver particles (Ag) using an immiscible secondary fluid to build ultra-stretchable, soft electronics. Bonding silver particles directly with PDMS enables inherently stretchable Ag-PDMS circuits. Compared to previous work, the reduced silver consumption creates significant advantages, e.g., better stretchability and lower costs. The secondary fluid ensures self-assembling conductivity networks. Sensors are 3D-printed ultra-thin (200%. Therefore, printed circuits can attach tightly onto the body. Due to biocompatibility, devices can be implanted (e.g., open wounds treatment). We present a proof of concept on-skin interface that uses the new material to provide six distinct input gestures. Our quantitative evaluation with ten participants shows that we can successfully classify the gestures with a low spatial-resolution circuit. With few training data and a gradient boosting classifier, we yield 83% overall accuracy. Our qualitative material study with twelve participants shows that usability and comfort are well perceived; however, the smooth but easy to adapt surface does not feel tissue-equivalent. For future work, the new material will likely serve to build robust and skin-like electronics

Capillary Refill using Augmented Reality

Master's thesis in Computer scienceThe opportunities within augmented reality is growing. Augmented reality is a combination of the real and the virtual world in real time, and large companies like Microsoft and Google is now investing heavily in the technology. This thesis presents a solution for simulating a medical test called capillary refill, by using augmented reality. The simulation is performed with an augmented reality headset called HoloLens. The HoloLens will recognise a marker attached to an artificial hand. The marker is used to detect and keep tracking of the position and orientation of the hand. Then a virtual 3D hand will be rendered over the marker on the artificial hand. Inside the artificial hand there is a pressure sensor that will be used to detect when users are adding pressure to the index finger. The finger on the virtual 3D model will then change nail colour on user interaction, and thereby simulating capillary refill