Tactile and kinesthetic communication glove with fusion of triboelectric sensing and pneumatic actuation

Abstract

Dexterous manipulation of hand plays a crucial role in daily life, industrial productivity, and research laboratory, etc. Evolution of humanoid robot and virtual training technique raise the demand of human machine interface with fusion of both sensing and feedback functions to realize the close loop interactions. Here, we present a modular glove which combines triboelectric sensor and pneumatic actuator for enabling multi-modal and multi-dimensional sensing and feedback. Owing to commonalities of materials and structural design, pneumatic actuator and triboelectric sensor can be seamlessly merged. The integration of fingertip module and finger module offers cutaneous and kinesthetic feedback with the corresponding sensing functions. The whole glove can perform sensing and actuation for most of the interactive activities, such as touching, twisting, grabbing, rubbing, etc. With the customized wearable signal processing and control system, the robotic hand manipulation and virtual training program were demonstrated to verify the capabilities of improving the tactile perception in different scenarios. In general, the proposed device with a minimalistic design and multi-modal sensing and feedback can improve the issue of missing or mismatch of tactile communication in robotic teleoperation, virtual training, and rehabilitation.