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Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications
We present a tactile telepresence system for real-time transmission of information about object stiffness to the human fingertips. Experimental tests were performed across two laboratories (Italy and Ireland). In the Italian laboratory, a mechatronic sensing platform indented different rubber sample...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5795525/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29342076 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18010261 |
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author | Sorgini, Francesca Massari, Luca D’Abbraccio, Jessica Palermo, Eduardo Menciassi, Arianna Petrovic, Petar B. Mazzoni, Alberto Carrozza, Maria Chiara Newell, Fiona N. Oddo, Calogero M. |
author_facet | Sorgini, Francesca Massari, Luca D’Abbraccio, Jessica Palermo, Eduardo Menciassi, Arianna Petrovic, Petar B. Mazzoni, Alberto Carrozza, Maria Chiara Newell, Fiona N. Oddo, Calogero M. |
author_sort | Sorgini, Francesca |
collection | PubMed |
description | We present a tactile telepresence system for real-time transmission of information about object stiffness to the human fingertips. Experimental tests were performed across two laboratories (Italy and Ireland). In the Italian laboratory, a mechatronic sensing platform indented different rubber samples. Information about rubber stiffness was converted into on-off events using a neuronal spiking model and sent to a vibrotactile glove in the Irish laboratory. Participants discriminated the variation of the stiffness of stimuli according to a two-alternative forced choice protocol. Stiffness discrimination was based on the variation of the temporal pattern of spikes generated during the indentation of the rubber samples. The results suggest that vibrotactile stimulation can effectively simulate surface stiffness when using neuronal spiking models to trigger vibrations in the haptic interface. Specifically, fractional variations of stiffness down to 0.67 were significantly discriminated with the developed neuromorphic haptic interface. This is a performance comparable, though slightly worse, to the threshold obtained in a benchmark experiment evaluating the same set of stimuli naturally with the own hand. Our paper presents a bioinspired method for delivering sensory feedback about object properties to human skin based on contingency–mimetic neuronal models, and can be useful for the design of high performance haptic devices. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5795525 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57955252018-02-13 Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications Sorgini, Francesca Massari, Luca D’Abbraccio, Jessica Palermo, Eduardo Menciassi, Arianna Petrovic, Petar B. Mazzoni, Alberto Carrozza, Maria Chiara Newell, Fiona N. Oddo, Calogero M. Sensors (Basel) Article We present a tactile telepresence system for real-time transmission of information about object stiffness to the human fingertips. Experimental tests were performed across two laboratories (Italy and Ireland). In the Italian laboratory, a mechatronic sensing platform indented different rubber samples. Information about rubber stiffness was converted into on-off events using a neuronal spiking model and sent to a vibrotactile glove in the Irish laboratory. Participants discriminated the variation of the stiffness of stimuli according to a two-alternative forced choice protocol. Stiffness discrimination was based on the variation of the temporal pattern of spikes generated during the indentation of the rubber samples. The results suggest that vibrotactile stimulation can effectively simulate surface stiffness when using neuronal spiking models to trigger vibrations in the haptic interface. Specifically, fractional variations of stiffness down to 0.67 were significantly discriminated with the developed neuromorphic haptic interface. This is a performance comparable, though slightly worse, to the threshold obtained in a benchmark experiment evaluating the same set of stimuli naturally with the own hand. Our paper presents a bioinspired method for delivering sensory feedback about object properties to human skin based on contingency–mimetic neuronal models, and can be useful for the design of high performance haptic devices. MDPI 2018-01-17 /pmc/articles/PMC5795525/ /pubmed/29342076 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18010261 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Sorgini, Francesca Massari, Luca D’Abbraccio, Jessica Palermo, Eduardo Menciassi, Arianna Petrovic, Petar B. Mazzoni, Alberto Carrozza, Maria Chiara Newell, Fiona N. Oddo, Calogero M. Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications |
title | Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications |
title_full | Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications |
title_fullStr | Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications |
title_full_unstemmed | Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications |
title_short | Neuromorphic Vibrotactile Stimulation of Fingertips for Encoding Object Stiffness in Telepresence Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Applications |
title_sort | neuromorphic vibrotactile stimulation of fingertips for encoding object stiffness in telepresence sensory substitution and augmentation applications |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5795525/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29342076 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18010261 |
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