Vibration Sensing
When the human finger slides over various surfaces vibrations are produce from the sliding friction. The human finger has specialized receptors to detect these vibrations which are essential for detection of slip and discrimination of surface textures as well as general tool usage. These same vibrations travel very efficiently through the BioTac fluid which is incompressible. They are then detected by the pressure transducer which has specially designed analog filters to optimize the sensitivity. The addition of fingerprints to the BioTac have been demonstrated to greatly enhance these vibrations.
As the ratio of tangential to normal force crosses the threshold of slip. Vibrations are produced and measured by the BioTac
The addition of fingerprints greatly enhances the sensed vibrations!
Publications
Design and use of a biomimetic tactile microvibration sensor with human-like sensitivity and its application in texture discrimination using Bayesian exploration
University of Southern California, Doctoral Thesis.
2012
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Bayesian exploration for intelligent identification of textures
Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 6(4) 1-20.
2012
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Sensing tactile microvibrations with the BioTac - comparison with human sensitivity
IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), 1122-1127.
2012
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The role of fingerprints in vibrotactile discrimination
Whitepaper for DoD Physics of Biology, 1-3.
2009
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A robust micro-vibration sensor for biomimetic fingertips
IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), 659-663.
2008
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