Mete Mustafa, Jeong Haewon, Wang Wei Dawid, Paik Jamie
Reconfigurable Robotics Laboratory, Institute of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne CH 1005, Switzerland.
Soft Robotics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Mar 26;121(13):e2314901121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2314901121. Epub 2024 Mar 11.
Tactile perception of softness serves a critical role in the survival, well-being, and social interaction among various species, including humans. This perception informs activities from food selection in animals to medical palpation for disease detection in humans. Despite its fundamental importance, a comprehensive understanding of how softness is neurologically and cognitively processed remains elusive. Previous research has demonstrated that the somatosensory system leverages both cutaneous and kinesthetic cues for the sensation of softness. Factors such as contact area, depth, and force play a particularly critical role in sensations experienced at the fingertips. Yet, existing haptic technologies designed to explore this phenomenon are limited, as they often couple force and contact area, failing to provide a real-world experience of softness perception. Our research introduces the softness-rendering interface (SORI), a haptic softness display designed to bridge this knowledge gap. Unlike its predecessors, SORI has the unique ability to decouple contact area and force, thereby allowing for a quantitative representation of softness sensations at the fingertips. Furthermore, SORI incorporates individual physical fingertip properties and model-based softness cue estimation and mapping to provide a highly personalized experience. Utilizing this method, SORI quantitatively replicates the sensation of softness on stationary, dynamic, homogeneous, and heterogeneous surfaces. We demonstrate that SORI accurately renders the surfaces of both virtual and daily objects, thereby presenting opportunities across a range of fields, from teleoperation to medical technology. Finally, our proposed method and SORI will expedite psychological and neuroscience research to unlock the nature of softness perception.
对柔软度的触觉感知在包括人类在内的各种物种的生存、幸福和社交互动中起着至关重要的作用。这种感知为从动物的食物选择到人类疾病检测的医学触诊等活动提供信息。尽管其具有根本重要性，但对柔软度在神经和认知层面如何被处理的全面理解仍然难以捉摸。先前的研究表明，体感系统利用皮肤和动觉线索来感知柔软度。诸如接触面积、深度和力等因素在指尖所体验到的感觉中起着尤为关键的作用。然而，现有的旨在探索这一现象的触觉技术存在局限性，因为它们常常将力和接触面积联系在一起，无法提供真实世界的柔软度感知体验。我们的研究引入了柔软度呈现界面（SORI），这是一种旨在弥合这一知识差距的触觉柔软度显示器。与之前的产品不同，SORI具有独特的能力，能够将接触面积和力分离开来，从而实现对指尖柔软度感觉的定量表示。此外，SORI纳入了个体指尖的物理特性以及基于模型的柔软度线索估计和映射，以提供高度个性化的体验。利用这种方法，SORI能够在静止、动态、均匀和非均匀表面上定量复制柔软度感觉。我们证明，SORI能够准确呈现虚拟物体和日常物体的表面，从而在从远程操作到医疗技术等一系列领域带来机遇。最后，我们提出的方法和SORI将加快心理学和神经科学研究，以揭示柔软度感知的本质。
