Collaborative Research: NRI: Smart Skins for Robotic Prosthetic Hand

在美国，有超过41,000名登记在册的人接受了手或整个手臂的截肢，每年大约有10,000例新的上肢截肢病例。人们迫切希望能够显著提高截肢者生活质量的假手能够恢复许多日常生活活动，特别是在握手和物体操纵方面。然而，能够准确地使用手仍然是机器人假手的一个重大和根本的挑战，特别是在现实生活环境中可靠和稳定的抓取所需的防滑特性方面。挑战在于将快速感知滑动检测和指尖小区域的快速运动相结合，以通过使用传感器和假手控制来防止滑动。该项目提出通过探索一种可以实时改变假手形状的皮肤的新概念来应对这一挑战。对于这个研究项目，研究人员将探索如何自动调整皮肤摩擦力。该项目旨在显著推进目前最先进的假手，以实现与人类手类似的功能，并增强上肢截肢者进行日常生活活动的能力。通过分布在全国各地(罗利、费城和罗拉)的跨学科团队的协作和个人努力，这个NSF项目提供了一个独特的机会，将来自机器人、机械、设计、先进制造的见解整合在一起，以生成一个耐人寻味和视觉上有吸引力的广泛参与计划。通过现有的项目，如高级设计项目、女性工程学会、荣誉项目和北卡罗来纳大学女性在科学领域的工作，调查人员将鼓励在研究活动中代表不足的本科生群体，包括女性和非裔美国学生。在每个机构建立的类似暑期计划和其他教育计划的帮助下，研究人员旨在改善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机器人假手中用于自主防滑的抓取对象之间的自适应触觉交互作用。从对智能变形皮肤-物体接触行为的基本了解到推力1中的设计、制造、执行和建模，到推力2中智能皮肤上的灵活触觉和空间传感，以及推力3中用于防滑评估的交互式集成人-机器人系统，将进行三个方面的研究。该项目将检验和演示多尺度制造技术的集成，以实现人机接口的复杂功能系统，以及机器人假手的创新反射式控制。该项目将产生关于驱动形状变形表面形貌在调整摩擦力方面的积极作用的新知识。对上肢截肢者的翻译研究将为了解人与假体的相互作用以及共享假体控制范式对截肢者运动功能和认知负荷的有效性提供新的见解。该项目还将促进力学、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NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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’ life 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 the similar functionality of 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, advanced manufacturing to generate an intriguing and visually appealing broad participation plan. Through existing programs, such as senior design projects, Society of Women Engineering, honor program, and UNC Working on Women in Science, the investigators will encourage underrepresented groups of undergraduate students 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 integrate flexible tactile and spatial sensing on the smart skins in Thrust 2, and to interactive integrated human-robotic system for anti-slip evaluation in Thrust 3. This project will examine and demonstrate the integration of multi-scale manufacturing technologies to achieve complex functional systems at 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 field 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.