Texture Discrimination with a Soft Biomimetic Finger Using a Flexible Neuromorphic Tactile Sensor Array That Provides Sensory Feedback
Texture Discrimination with a Soft Biomimetic Finger Using a Flexible Neuromorphic Tactile Sensor Array That Provides Sensory Feedback
复制标题
DOI：
10.1089/soro.2020.0016
复制
发表时间：
2020-09-23
期刊：
影响因子：
7.9
通讯作者：
Thakor, Nitish
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Sankar, Sriramana;Balamurugan, Darshini;Thakor, Nitish
柔软手指的顺应性允许人类在非结构化环境中安全灵巧地操纵物体。一种柔软的假肢手指设计具有触觉感知能力，用于纹理识别和随后的感官刺激，有可能为截肢者创造更自然的体验。在这项工作中，气动驱动的柔软仿生手指与纺织神经形态触觉传感器阵列集成在一起，用于纹理识别任务。触觉传感器输出被转换成神经形态的脉冲序列，模拟生物机械感受器的放电模式。来自每个taxel的基于spike的特征压缩信息，然后作为支持向量机分类器的输入来区分纹理。在13个标准化纹理表面上进行测试时，我们的神经形态编码软仿生手指在16个独立参数上的平均总体分类准确率达到99.57%。16个参数为软指4个屈曲角度和4种触诊速度的组合。为了帮助被试感知更自然的物体并对其进行操作，被试接受经皮神经电刺激以传递具有不同纹理信息的四种纹理子集。三名身体健全的受试者通过施加刺激成功地区分了两种或三种纹理。这项工作为更像人类的假肢铺平了道路，通过柔软的仿生手指，利用提供感官反馈的神经形态技术，具有纹理识别能力；此外，纹理反馈在与周围环境互动时具有增强用户体验的潜力。
The compliant nature of soft fingers allows for safe and dexterous manipulation of objects by humans in an unstructured environment. A soft prosthetic finger design with tactile sensing capabilities for texture discrimination and subsequent sensory stimulation has the potential to create a more natural experience for an amputee. In this work, a pneumatically actuated soft biomimetic finger is integrated with a textile neuromorphic tactile sensor array for a texture discrimination task. The tactile sensor outputs were converted into neuromorphic spike trains, which emulate the firing pattern of biological mechanoreceptors. Spike-based features from each taxel compressed the information and were then used as inputs for the support vector machine classifier to differentiate the textures. Our soft biomimetic finger with neuromorphic encoding was able to achieve an average overall classification accuracy of 99.57% over 16 independent parameters when tested on 13 standardized textured surfaces. The 16 parameters were the combination of 4 angles of flexion of the soft finger and 4 speeds of palpation. To aid in the perception of more natural objects and their manipulation, subjects were provided with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation to convey a subset of four textures with varied textural information. Three able-bodied subjects successfully distinguished two or three textures with the applied stimuli. This work paves the way for a more human-like prosthesis through a soft biomimetic finger with texture discrimination capabilities using neuromorphic techniques that provide sensory feedback; furthermore, texture feedback has the potential to enhance user experience when interacting with their surroundings.