Collaborative Research: NRI: Smart Skins for Robotic Prosthetic Hand

在美国，有超过41，000名登记人士曾接受手部或整臂截肢手术，而每年约有10，000宗上肢截肢新个案。能够显著改善截肢者生活质量的假手是非常期望的，以恢复许多日常生活活动，特别是手抓握和物体操纵。然而，能够准确地使用手仍然是机器人假手的重大和基本的挑战，特别是在真实的生活环境中可靠和稳定的抓持所需的防滑特性。挑战在于通过使用传感器和假肢手的控制来集成滑动检测的快速感测和指尖中的小区域中的快速移动以防止滑动。该项目提出通过探索一种新的皮肤概念来迎接这一挑战，这种皮肤可以在真实的时间内改变其形状以用于假手。在这个研究项目中，研究人员将探索如何自动调整皮肤摩擦力。该项目旨在大大提高目前最先进的假手，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。通过跨学科团队的合作和个人努力，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，整合来自机器人，机械，设计和先进制造的见解，以产生一个有趣的和视觉上吸引人的广泛参与计划。通过现有的计划，如高级设计项目，女工程师协会，荣誉计划，和美国科学院的妇女工作计划，调查人员将鼓励代表性不足的本科生群体参加研究活动，包括女性和非洲裔美国学生。在各机构已建立的类似暑期项目和其他教育项目的帮助下，研究人员旨在改善K-12学生的STEM教育。该项目的目标是从根本上了解智能形状变形机器人皮肤和抓取物体之间的自适应触觉交互，以实现机器人假手的自主防滑。三个推力将追求范围从基本理解的接触行为在智能变形皮肤对象通过设计，制造，驱动和建模的推力1，在推力2智能皮肤上集成灵活的触觉和空间传感，并评估交互式集成人机系统，以防止推力3滑动。该项目将研究和展示多尺度制造技术的集成，以实现人机界面上的复杂功能系统，以及机器人假肢手的创新反射式控制。 这个项目将产生新的知识的积极作用，驱动变形表面形态在调整摩擦。对上肢截肢者的转化研究将为人类-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有效性提供新的见解。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NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.