A Miniature Programmable Multichannel Sensory Feedback Device with Electrotactile and Vibrotactile Modalities for Amputees

A Miniature Programmable Multichannel Sensory Feedback Device with Electrotactile and Vibrotactile Modalities for Amputees

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연구 분야: Infrastructure

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학회: International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications

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초록

Amputee patients lack sensory feedback when using a prosthetic hand, while commercially available sensory feedback devices are usually too large, and some miniaturized sensory feedback devices are limited by their performance and their ability to provide rich feedback. Therefore, in this paper, a miniaturized multichannel sensory feedback device that can provide both electrotactile and vibrotactile feedback has been developed. Electrotactile feedback is provided by 16 switchable current outputs, whose frequency, pulse width, amplitude, and number of pulses are programmable. It can provide an output current within ±5 mA with a compliance voltage of 50 V and ensure that the output current error is within 0.1% of the output range. Besides, an output response time of less than 10 microseconds ensures a high temporal resolution of the output current. For vibrotactile feedback, it can drive 5 LRA vibration motors and adjust the output amplitude. Output waveforms for both vibrotactile and electrotactile feedback can be flexibly customized. It also offers practical features such as CAN communication and skin impedance detection. This paper also conducts psychophysical experiments on seven healthy subjects and two amputees, and the results show that when identifying the nine state quantities, the subjects’ identification accuracies (79% ± 16%) are significantly higher when using the hybrid sensory feedback. This demonstrates that the hybrid sensory feedback device developed in this paper can effectively provide amputees with rich and effective sensory feedback.

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