Design and fabrication of a haptic feedback armband for a robotic hand

Robotics prostheses are the types of robotic equipment that come to the aid of disabled people and retrieve some of their lost abilities. There have been great improvements in design and fabrication of these prostheses and also their control system via the residual musclesʼ myoelectric signals especially for the ones designed for upper limb. But while it can have an immense impact on easy grip and subconscious control, the feedback for the prostheses seems to be an unsolved problem. A number of methods have been studied to recreate the missing somatosensory information by stimulating the skin on the residual limb. The ease of utilization, low power consumption and small size have made the vibrotactile feedback the most popular method to create haptic feedback in many studies.In this paper the goal is to create a haptic vibrotactile feedback for a robotic hand with 6 Degrees of freedom, with 2 degrees of freedom for thumb and one degree of freedom for each finger and the robotic hand is controlled by myoelectric signals.The changes of pressure during grasp are measured by a barometric pressure sensor Bmp 180, placed in a sealed environment designed for the tip of the Index finger. Data is transmitted wirelessly to the feedback system and the feedback system on the armband creates different levels of vibration intensity using a vibration motor, microcontroller and receiving module in proportion to the pressure that is sensed on the robotic hand.

Keywords:

haptic , feedback , vibrotactile , prosthesis