A Teleoperation System for Reproducing Tactile Perception Using Frequency Channel Segregation

Abstract

Nowadays, haptic feedback technology has been applied to many applications to help users acquiring more information concerning surrounding environments. In this research, a real-time teleoperation system was developed to bring vibrotactile sensation concerning object surface texture from a remote location to the local users. A force sensor and a PVDF sensor were used to design a data recording device, which was attached to a remote slave robot arm, for recording physical surface texture information. Based on the different sensitivity frequency ranges of the mechanoreceptors in human glabrous skin, a novel tactile rendering device was designed to trigger frequency-channel-segregated vibrotactile stimuli in the master’s side. Two bending piezoelectric actuators were used to trigger different stimulation intensities with different frequency ranges. To examine the efficacy of the teleoperation system, a tactile discrimination test was conducted. Users were asked to match the simulated surface textures with physical surface textures. The correctness of the discrimination test was about 87.5%. The results also showed that the developed system can produce realistic remote surface textures in real time.