Quantifying Skin Stretch for Enhanced Haptic Feedback in Hand Grasping Tasks
摘要
In the human body, skin stretch is intrinsically related to motion execution, providing proprioceptive cues for movement perception and control, particularly in hands and fingers. However, a quantification of skin stretch across multiple hand joints lacks. This study addresses this gap by quantifying skin stretch on the dorsal side of fingers, focusing on Proximal InterPhalangeal (PIP) and MetaCarpal (MCP) joints. Twelve participants grasped twenty objects, with an RGB-D camera capturing hand kinematics and optical markers estimating skin displacement. We established a linear relationship between joint angles and skin stretch, with no significant differences between participants and objects. Building on this, we developed an experimental setup to investigate the use of magnetic fields for eliciting skin stretch stimulation. Controlled solenoid currents moved a magnet in various directions, demonstrating the feasibility of magnetic feedback for prosthetics. These findings pave the way for non-invasive feedback devices, with implications for rehabilitation and advanced human-machine interaction.