Artificial skin for smart prosthetics****

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A lack of sensory feedback is one reason why upper limb amputees abandon their prostheses. Implementing this feedback has been shown to improve functional prosthetic manipulation and give patients a greater sense of ownership over their prostheses. The proposed research will provide upper limb prosthetic users the ability to sense touch and pressure, as well as enabling interaction with touchscreen technologies. This work will use innovative capacitance sensor technology that is inexpensive, low-power, and stretchable like human skin. This sensor skin is fabricated using deformable elastomeric material that acts as a dielectric to separate electrodes made of conductive carbon black material. Using this layered structure, pressure can be detected by the increase in capacitance generated by a decrease in dielectric thickness upon compression. The proposed research will mold this artificial skin onto an upper limb prosthesis to form a glove-like shape, with sensing points located at the fingertips. A pressure-calibrated microchip will interpret changes in capacitance and convert them into input current for an armband that produces transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. This aims to give patients access to a low-cost, easy-to-use, non-invasive and versatile device that can be applied to any upper limb prosthesis. Targeted outcomes include improved patient control of prostheses, enabling the use of touchscreen devices, and improvement in the user's sense of ownership by embodying the artificial limb with tactile stimulation. Overall, this work contributes to technical advances in the field of prosthetics.