title: Morphological Computation of Haptic Perception of a Controllable Stiffness Probe.
abstract: When people are asked to palpate a novel soft object to discern its physical properties such as texture, elasticity, and even non-homogeneity, they not only regulate probing behaviors, but also the co-contraction level of antagonistic muscles to control the mechanical impedance of fingers. It is suspected that such behavior tries to enhance haptic perception by regulating the function of mechanoreceptors at different depths of the fingertips and proprioceptive sensors such as tendon and spindle sensors located in muscles. In this paper, we designed and fabricated a novel two-degree of freedom variable stiffness indentation probe to investigate whether the regulation of internal stiffness, indentation, and probe sweeping velocity (PSV) variables affect the accuracy of the depth estimation of stiff inclusions in an artificial silicon phantom using information gain metrics. Our experimental results provide new insights into not only the biological phenomena of haptic perception but also new opportunities to design and control soft robotic probes.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Robotics Research, Department of Informatics, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nantachai
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sornkarn
authors.affiliation: MRC centre for Transplantation, DTIMB and NIHR BRC, King's College London, Guys Hospital, London SE1 9RT, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Prokar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dasgupta
authors.affiliation: Centre for Robotics Research, Department of Informatics, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Thrishantha
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nanayakkara
mesh_terms: D005385:Fingers / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008465:Mechanoreceptors / Q000378:metabolism; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*