Collaborative Research: NRI: Smart Skins for Robotic Prosthetic Hand

在美国，有超过41,000名登记在册的人截肢了手或整个手臂，每年大约有10,000例新的上肢截肢病例。假肢可以显著改善截肢者的生活质量，人们非常希望它能恢复许多日常生活活动，特别是在手部抓取和物体操作方面。然而，能够准确地使用手仍然是机器人假肢手的一个重大和基本的挑战，特别是在现实生活环境中可靠和稳定的抓握所需的防滑特性。挑战在于如何将滑动检测的快速传感和指尖小区域的快速运动结合起来，通过使用传感器和假肢手的控制来防止滑动。这个项目提出通过探索一种新的皮肤概念来应对这一挑战，这种皮肤可以实时改变假手的形状。在这个研究项目中，研究者将探索如何自动调节皮肤摩擦。该项目旨在显著推进目前最先进的假肢手，以实现与人手相似的功能，并提高上肢截肢者进行日常生活活动的能力。通过跨学科团队的协作和个人努力，分布在全国各地（罗利，费城和罗拉），这个NSF项目提供了一个独特的机会，将机器人，机械，设计和先进制造的见解整合在一起，产生一个有趣的和视觉上吸引人的广泛参与计划。通过现有的项目，如高级设计项目、女工程师协会、荣誉项目和北卡罗来纳大学的女性参与科学项目，调查人员将鼓励代表性不足的本科生群体参与研究活动，包括女性和非裔美国学生。在每个机构建立类似的暑期项目和其他教育项目的帮助下，调查人员的目标是提高K-12学生的STEM教育。本项目的目标是从根本上了解智能变形机器人皮肤与被抓物体之间的自适应触觉相互作用，以实现机器人假肢手的自主防滑。在推力1中，通过设计、制造、驱动和建模对智能变形皮肤与物体接触行为的基本理解；在推力2中，将柔性触觉和空间传感集成到智能皮肤上；在推力3中，评估人机交互集成系统以防止滑动。该项目将研究和展示多尺度制造技术的集成，以实现人机界面的复杂功能系统，以及机器人假手的创新反射控制。该项目将产生新的知识，驱动的形状变形表面形态在调整摩擦的积极作用。对上肢截肢者的转化研究将为研究人-假肢相互作用以及共享假肢控制范式对截肢者运动功能和认知负荷的影响提供新的视角。该项目还将推进力学、传感、制造、机器人假肢控制和人机交互等多学科领域的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the U.S., there are over 41,000 registered persons who had an amputation of hand or complete arm, and approximately 10,000 new amputation cases in the upper limb each year. Prosthetic hands that can significantly improve the quality of amputees’ lives are highly desired to restore many activities of daily living, particularly in hand grasping and object manipulation. However, being able to use the hand accurately remains a grand and fundamental challenge in robotic prosthetic hands, especially in the desired trait of slip prevention for reliable and stable grasping in real life environments. The challenge resides in integrating fast sensing of slip detection and rapid movement in the small-area in the fingertips to prevent slippage through the use of sensors and controls of the prosthetic hands. This project proposes to meet this challenge by exploring a new concept of a skin that can change its shape for prosthetic hands in real time. For this research project, the investigators will explore how to adjust the skin friction automatically. This project seeks to significantly advance the current state-of-the-art prosthetic hands to achieve similar functionality to human hands, as well as enhance the ability of upper limb amputees for performing activities of daily living. Through both collaborative and individual efforts of the interdisciplinary team with distributed geographical location across the country (Raleigh, Philadelphia, and Rolla), this NSF project offers a unique opportunity to integrate insights from robotics, mechanics, design, and advanced manufacturing to generate an intriguing and visually appealing broad participation plan. Through existing programs, such as senior design projects, the Society of Women Engineers, honor program, and UNC's Working on Women in Science program, the investigators will encourage underrepresented groups of undergraduate students to participate in research activities, including female and African American students. With the help of established similar summer programs and other educational programs in each institution, the investigators aim to improve the STEM education of K-12 students.The goal of this project is to fundamentally understand the adaptive tactile interactions between the smart shape-morphing robotic skins and grasped objects for autonomous slip prevention in robotic prosthetic hands. Three thrusts will be pursued ranging from fundamental understanding of contact behaviors in smart morphing skins-objects through design, fabrication, actuation, and modeling in Thrust 1, to integrating flexible tactile and spatial sensing on the smart skins in Thrust 2, and to evaluating interactive integrated human-robotic system for preventing slip in Thrust 3. This project will examine and demonstrate the integration of multi-scale manufacturing technologies to achieve complex functional systems at the human-object interface, as well as the innovative reflex-like control of a robotic prosthesis hand. This project will generate new knowledge on the active role of actuated shape-morphing surface morphologies in tuning the friction. The translational research on upper limb amputees will provide new insight on human-prosthesis interactions and effectiveness of shared prosthesis control paradigm on amputees’ motor function and cognitive load. This project will also advance the knowledge in the multidisciplinary fields of mechanics, sensing, manufacturing, robotic prosthesis controls, and human-robot interaction.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.