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Title: On the impact force of human-robot interaction: Joint compliance vs. link compliance
Award ID(s):
1637656
NSF-PAR ID:
10039364
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of IEEE 2017 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Page Range / eLocation ID:
6718 to 6723
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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  1. Abstract

    Individual differences in tactile acuity have been correlated with age, gender and finger size, whereas the role of the skin's stiffness has been underexplored. Using an approach to image the 3‐D deformation of the skin surface during contact with transparent elastic objects, we evaluate a cohort of 40 young participants, who present a diverse range of finger size, skin stiffness and fingerprint ridge breadth. The results indicate that skin stiffness generally correlates with finger size, although individuals with relatively softer skin can better discriminate compliant objects. Analysis of contact at the skin surface reveals that softer skin generates more prominent patterns of deformation, in particular greater rates of change in contact area, which correlate with higher rates of perceptual discrimination of compliance, regardless of finger size. Moreover, upon applying hyaluronic acid to soften individuals’ skin, we observe immediate, marked and systematic changes in skin deformation and consequent improvements in perceptual acuity in differentiating compliance. Together, the combination of 3‐D imaging of the skin surface, biomechanics measurements, multivariate regression and clustering, and psychophysical experiments show that subtle distinctions in skin stiffness modulate the mechanical signalling of touch and shape individual differences in perceptual acuity.Key points

    Although declines in tactile acuity with ageing are a function of multiple factors, for younger people, the current working hypothesis has been that smaller fingers are better at informing perceptual discrimination because of a higher density of neural afferents.

    To decouple relative impacts on tactile acuity of skin properties of finger size, skin stiffness, and fingerprint ridge breadth, we combined 3‐D imaging of skin surface deformation, biomechanical measurements, multivariate regression and clustering, and psychophysics.

    The results indicate that skin stiffness generally correlates with finger size, although it more robustly correlates with and predicts an individual's perceptual acuity.

    In particular, more elastic skin generates higher rates of deformation, which correlate with perceptual discrimination, shown most dramatically by softening each participant's skin with hyaluronic acid.

    In refining the current working hypothesis, we show the skin's stiffness strongly shapes the signalling of touch and modulates individual differences in perceptual acuity.

     
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  2. Abstract In this article, the synthesis of any specified planar compliance with a serial elastic mechanism having previously determined link lengths is addressed. For a general n-joint serial mechanism, easily assessed necessary conditions on joint locations for the realization of a given compliance are identified. Geometric construction-based synthesis procedures for five-joint and six-joint serial mechanisms having kinematically redundant fixed link lengths are developed. By using these procedures, a given serial manipulator can achieve a large set of different compliant behaviors by using variable stiffness actuation and by adjusting the mechanism configuration. 
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