I-Corps: RoboSense - Artificial Tactile Sensors for Prosthetic Applications

人造触觉皮肤在上肢假肢的“触觉”中起着至关重要的作用。一般来说，由于感知信息不足，上肢截肢者的假肢缺乏正确握持物体的能力。这种控制的缺乏导致截肢者经常掉下被抓住的物体，因为很难准确地识别该物体是如何被抓住的。最近的调查表明，截肢者希望自动控制抓握物体，以帮助防止打滑。然而，对抓取物体的检测和防止滑动的控制是一个挑战，这是假手的一大痛点。目前大多数商业化的上肢假肢并不智能，也就是说，它们缺乏感觉部件，尽管它们相当昂贵。建议的人造触觉传感器将产生巨大的市场影响，因为它们将提供更符合人体工程学和美学的手，具有更高的功能。这将使截肢者在身体和心理上获得更大的满足感。传感器的低成本将降低假手的价格，更多失去上肢的人将能够克服相关的创伤，恢复有报酬的工作，并过上更充实的社会生活。一种可伸缩的多层触觉传感器被提出，它采用了新开发的压力/温度敏感聚合物复合材料和混合3D打印工艺。该传感器不仅可以检测物体的法向力和剪切力，还可以检测物体的温度。该传感器是由皮肤状橡胶材料、底部可伸缩电极、压力/温度敏感型聚合物复合材料、顶部可伸展电极和皮肤材料进行3D打印而成。由于建议的传感器可以使用3D打印在大小和形状上完全定制，它们可以适合所需的假手。这种传感器可以为截肢者提供足够的感知信息，以实现对上肢假肢的高功能操作。智能优势包括3D打印技术的进步，人工触觉传感器的发展，以及所建议的传感器在智能上肢假肢中的应用。

Artificial tactile skins play a critical role in 'sense of touch' for upper limb prosthetics. In general, the prostheses in upper limb amputees lack in holding an object correctly due to insufficient sensing information. This dearth of control causes amputees to often drop grasped objects since it is hard to recognize precisely how the object is grasped. Recent surveys show that amputees desire automatic control of grasping objects to assist prevention of slip. However, the control of detection and prevention of grasped objects from slipping is a challenge, which is a major pain point in the prosthetic hands. Most of current commercial upper-limb prosthetics are not smart, that is they lack sensory components, although they are quite expensive. The suggested artificial tactile sensors will have a huge market impact as they will provide more ergonomic and aesthetic hands with higher functionality. This will allow amputees greater physical and psychological satisfaction. The lower cost of the sensors will reduce the price of prosthetic hands and more individuals with upper limb loss will be able overcome the associated trauma, resume gainful employment and lead a more fulfilling social life.A stretchable multi-layer tactile sensor is suggested with a new developed pressure/temperature-sensitive polymer composite and hybrid 3D printing process. The suggested sensor can detect not only normal and shear forces, but temperature of objects. This sensor has been developed by 3D printing of a skin-like rubber material, bottom stretchable electrodes, pressure/temperature-sensitive polymer composite, top stretchable electrodes and skin material. Since the suggested sensors can be fully customized in size and shape using 3D printing, they can fit to desired prosthetic hands. This sensor can provide the amputee with enough sensing information for the high-functionality manipulation of the upper limb prosthetics. Intellectual merits include advancement of 3D printing technologies for artificial tactile sensors and application of the suggested sensors to 'smart' upper limb prosthetics.