A system for electrotactile feedback using electronic skin and flexible matrix electrodes: Experimental evaluation
File(s)07592935(4)_IEEEHaptics (002).pdf (1.54 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Myoelectric prostheses are successfully controlled using muscle electrical activity, thereby restoring lost motor functions. However, the somatosensory feedback from the prosthesis to the user is still missing. The sensory substitution methods described in the literature comprise mostly simple position and force sensors combined with discrete stimulation units. The present study describes a novel system for sophisticated electrotactile feedback integrating advanced distributed sensing (electronic skin) and stimulation (matrix electrodes). The system was tested in eight healthy subjects who were asked to recognize the shape, trajectory, and direction of a set of dynamic movement patterns (single lines, geometrical objects, letters) presented on the electronic skin. The experiments demonstrated that the system successfully translated the mechanical interaction into the moving electrotactile profiles, which the subjects could recognize with a good performance (shape recognition: 86±8% lines, 73±13% geometries, 72±12% letters). In particular, the subjects could identify the movement direction with a high confidence. These results are in accordance with previous studies investigating the recognition of moving stimuli in human subjects. This is an important development towards closed-loop prostheses providing comprehensive and sophisticated tactile feedback to the user, facilitating the control and the embodiment of the artificial device into the user body scheme.
Date Issued
2016-10-20
Date Acceptance
2016-10-01
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 2016, 10 (2), pp.162-172
ISSN
1939-1412
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Start Page
162
End Page
172
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Haptics
Volume
10
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Publication Status
Published