Understanding haptics by evolving mechatronic systems.

Haptics can be defined as the characterization and identification of objects by voluntary exploration and somatosensory feedback. It requires multimodal sensing, motor dexterity, and high levels of cognitive integration with prior experience and fundamental concepts of self versus external world. Humans have unique haptic capabilities that enable tool use. Experimental animals have much poorer capabilities that are difficult to train and even more difficult to study because they involve rapid, subtle, and variable movements. Robots can now be constructed with biomimetic sensing and dexterity, so they may provide a suitable platform on which to test theories of haptics. Robots will need to embody such theories if they are ever going to realize the long-standing dream of working alongside humans using the same tools and objects.