Characterization of Thimbles Based upon Different Sensors

Human can grasp and release any object based upon the tactile feedback. Without the feedback, the ability for fine control of a prosthesis is limited in the upper limb amputees. Based on the discrete event-driven sensory feedback control (DESC), there is a device that informs the users on the completion of the discrete events such as object contact and release in the form of vibrotactile feedback. The device (DESC-glove) comprises sensorized thimbles to be placed on the prosthesis digits to sense the contact events, a battery-powered electronic board, and vibrating units embedded in an arm-cuff. In this paper, we have presented the sensitivity in terms of the force applied on the thimble at different positions with different force rate. An experimental setup was designed in order to characterize the two thimbles with different sensors. The sensitivity was 0.82 ± 0.16 and 1.18 ± 0.05 N for two thimbles. The main motivation to present the sensitivity of the thimble in different position was to overcome the limitation of the previous design.