A wearable device that vibrates fingertip could improve wearer’s touch
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a glove with a special fingertip which employs stochastic resonance in order to improve the wearer’s sense of touch and motor performance. The
A wearable device that vibrates fingertip could improve wearer’s touch
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a glove with a special fingertip which employs stochastic resonance in order to improve the wearer’s sense of touch and motor performance. The technology could be used to assist individuals whose jobs require high-precision manual dexterity or those with medical conditions that reduce their sense of touch.
Previous research has shown that the use of stochastic resonance can improve sight, hearing, balance control and touch, but the white noise had not been incorporated into a wearable device.
“All of the experimental results showed that some mechanical vibration was better than none at all, but the level of vibration that statistically improved sensorimotor functions varied by test”, said Jun Ueda, an assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Ueda worked with Minoru Shinohara, an associate professor in the School of Applied Physiology at Georgia Tech, and visiting scholar Yuichi Kurita, to design the device and test its capabilities on a small group of healthy individuals.
The device uses an actuator made of a stack of lead zirconate titanate layers to generate high-frequency vibration. The ceramic layers are piezoelectric, which means they vibrate when they experience an electrical charge. The actuator is attached to the side of the fingertip so that the palm-side of the finger remains free and the individual wearing the glove can continue to manipulate objects.
In order to test the device, the researchers attached the device to 10 healthy adult volunteers who performed common sensory and motor skill tasks, including texture discrimination, two-point discrimination, single-point touch and grasp tests. For each test, researchers attached the device to a volunteer’s non-dominant index finger and subjected the finger to six randomized vibrations that ranged from 0 to 150 percent of that person’s vibration amplitude threshold, a value that was determined by earlier testing where the subjects were asked when they can feel that the device was vibrating.
All four sensing ability tests confirmed that the application of certain levels of mechanical vibration enhanced the tactile sensitivity of the fingertip. However, because the levels of vibration that created s