Skorina Erik H, Luo Ming, Onal Cagdas D
Soft Robotics Lab, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, United States.
Front Robot AI. 2018 Jul 24;5:83. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2018.00083. eCollection 2018.
Advances in soft robotics provide a unique approach for delivering haptic feedback to a user by a soft wearable device. Such devices can apply forces directly on the human joints, while still maintaining the safety and flexibility necessary for use in close proximity to the human body. To take advantage of these properties, we present a new haptic wrist device using pressure-driven soft actuators called reverse pneumatic artificial muscles (rPAMs) mounted on four sides of the wrist. These actuators are originally pre-strained and release compressive stress under pressure, applying a safe torque around the wrist joints while being compact and portable, representing the first soft haptic device capable of real-time feedback. To demonstrate the functional utility of this device, we created a virtual path-following task, wherein the user employs the motion of their wrist to control their embodied agent. We used the haptic wrist device to assist the user in following the path and study their performance with and without haptic feedback in multiple scenarios. Our results quantify the effect of wearable soft robotic haptic feedback on user performance. Specifically, we observed that our haptic feedback system improved the performance of users following complicated paths in a statistically significant manner, but did not show improvement for simple linear paths. Based on our findings, we anticipate broader applications of wearable soft robotic haptic devices toward intuitive user interactions with robots, computers, and other users.
软机器人技术的进步为通过柔软的可穿戴设备向用户提供触觉反馈提供了一种独特的方法。此类设备可以直接在人体关节上施加力，同时仍能保持在人体附近使用所需的安全性和灵活性。为了利用这些特性，我们展示了一种新的触觉手腕设备，该设备使用压力驱动的软致动器，称为反向气动人工肌肉（rPAM），安装在手腕的四个侧面。这些致动器最初是预拉伸的，在压力下释放压缩应力，在手腕关节周围施加安全扭矩，同时紧凑便携，是首个能够进行实时反馈的柔软触觉设备。为了证明该设备的功能效用，我们创建了一个虚拟路径跟踪任务，其中用户利用手腕的运动来控制其化身。我们使用触觉手腕设备协助用户跟踪路径，并研究他们在多种场景下有无触觉反馈时的表现。我们的结果量化了可穿戴软机器人触觉反馈对用户表现的影响。具体而言，我们观察到，我们的触觉反馈系统以统计学上显著的方式提高了用户在复杂路径上的表现，但在简单线性路径上并未显示出改善。基于我们的发现，我们预计可穿戴软机器人触觉设备在与机器人、计算机和其他用户进行直观的用户交互方面将有更广泛的应用。
