Malvezzi Monica, Chinello Francesco, Prattichizzo Domenico, Pacchierotti Claudio
IEEE Trans Haptics. 2021 Apr-Jun;14(2):266-272. doi: 10.1109/TOH.2021.3076106. Epub 2021 Jun 17.
The size and shape of fingertips vary significantly across humans, making it challenging to design wearable fingertip interfaces suitable for everyone. Although deemed important, this issue has often been neglected due to the difficulty of customizing devices for each different user. This article presents an innovative approach for automatically adapting the hardware design of a wearable haptic interface for a given user. We consider a three-DoF fingertip cutaneous device, composed of a static body and a mobile platform linked by three articulated legs. The mobile platform is capable of making and breaking contact with the finger pulp and re-angle to replicate contacts with arbitrarily-oriented surfaces. We analyze the performance of this device as a function of its main geometrical dimensions. Then, starting from the user's fingertip characteristics, we define a numerical procedure that best adapts the dimension of the device to: (i) maximize the range of renderable haptic stimuli; (ii) avoid unwanted contacts between the device and the skin; (iii) avoid singular configurations; and (iv) minimize the device encumbrance and weight. Together with the mechanical analysis and evaluation of the adapted design, we present a MATLAB script that calculates the device dimensions customized for a target fingertip as well as an online CAD utility for generating a ready-to-print STL file of the personalized design.
人类指尖的大小和形状差异很大，这使得设计适合每个人的可穿戴指尖接口具有挑战性。尽管这个问题被认为很重要，但由于为每个不同用户定制设备存在困难，它常常被忽视。本文提出了一种创新方法，可针对特定用户自动调整可穿戴触觉接口的硬件设计。我们考虑一种三自由度指尖皮肤设备，它由一个固定主体和一个通过三条铰接腿连接的移动平台组成。该移动平台能够与指腹接触和分离，并重新调整角度以模拟与任意方向表面的接触。我们分析了该设备的性能与其主要几何尺寸的关系。然后，从用户指尖特征出发，我们定义了一个数值程序，以最佳地调整设备尺寸，从而：（i）最大化可呈现的触觉刺激范围；（ii）避免设备与皮肤之间的不必要接触；（iii）避免奇异配置；（iv）最小化设备的负担和重量。除了对适配设计进行力学分析和评估外，我们还提供了一个MATLAB脚本，用于计算为目标指尖定制的设备尺寸，以及一个在线CAD实用程序，用于生成可直接打印的个性化设计STL文件。
