Project Leader: Maria Chiara Carrozza
The integration of a tactile sensory system, able to mimic human sensing capabilities, in artificial hands is fundamental. ARTS Lab is focusing its activities on the study and development of bio-inspired tactile sensory stems capable of encoding tactile events for the control of the grasping and manipulation of an object, and thus to provide a tactile feedback to the patient once the bionic prosthesis is worn. The final aim is to restore as much as possible the natural perception of the lost limb.
The first objective is to develop bio-inspired tactile sensors that can provide useful information about the interaction of the hand with the environment.
A second goal of this research approach is the development of a feedback system able to convey the tactile information to the user by means of non-invasive systems. Several technologies are currently exploited to design and develop different kinds of tactile systems, from MEMS and NEMS, to optoelectronic-based technologies. Tactile systems are being conceived and designed concurrently with the artifi cial hand, and, after fabrication and component testing, dedicated experimental protocols and test benches are developed in order to validate the complete system that is composed of the hand and of the integrated sensors.
Also, research on human-like fi ngertip skin is being carried out in order to enhance the artificial fi ngertip with the sense of touch, slippage and temperature while keeping the cosmetic appearance of the real skin.
Based on existing experience, the development of new nano-engineered tactile sensors is being undertaken to develop new fingertip sensor systems that will mimic the spatial resolution, sensitivity and dynamics of human tactile neural sensors, i.e. able to act as mechano-receptive cells.
This will lead to an improved description of the neural coding for taction, such as texture recognition.