TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of vibrotactile feedback and grasp interface compliance on perception and control of a sensorized myoelectric hand
AU - Pena, Andres E.
AU - Rincon-Gonzalez, Liliana
AU - Abbas, James
AU - Jung, Ranu
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health through a grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH-R01-EB008578 to RJ. This work was also supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Army Research Office (ARO) and was accomplished under Grant Number W911NF-17-1-0022 to RJ. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Army Research Office or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation herein.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Pena et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - Current myoelectric prosthetic limbs are limited in their ability to provide direct sensory feedback to users, which increases attentional demands and reliance on visual cues. Vibrotactile sensory substitution (VSS), which can be used to provide sensory feedback in a non-invasive manner has demonstrated some improvement in myoelectric hand control. In this work, we developed and tested two VSS configurations: one with a single burst-rate modulated actuator and another with a spatially distributed array of five coin tactors. We performed a direct comparative assessment of these two VSS configurations with able-bodied subjects to investigate sensory perception, myoelectric control of grasp force and hand aperture with a prosthesis, and the effects of interface compliance. Six subjects completed a sensory perception experiment under a stimulation only paradigm; sixteen subjects completed experiments to compare VSS performance on perception and graded myoelectric control during grasp force and hand aperture tasks; and ten subjects completed experiments to investigate the effect of mechanical compliance of the myoelectric hand on the ability to control grasp force. Results indicated that sensory perception of vibrotactile feedback was not different for the two VSS configurations in the absence of active myoelectric control, but it was better with feedback from the coin tactor array than with the single actuator during myoelectric control of grasp force. Graded myoelectric control of grasp force and hand aperture was better with feedback from the coin tactor array than with the single actuator, and myoelectric control of grasp force was improved with a compliant grasp interface. Further investigations with VSS should focus on the use of coin tactor arrays by subjects with amputation in real-world settings and on improving control of grasp force by increasing the mechanical compliance of the hand.
AB - Current myoelectric prosthetic limbs are limited in their ability to provide direct sensory feedback to users, which increases attentional demands and reliance on visual cues. Vibrotactile sensory substitution (VSS), which can be used to provide sensory feedback in a non-invasive manner has demonstrated some improvement in myoelectric hand control. In this work, we developed and tested two VSS configurations: one with a single burst-rate modulated actuator and another with a spatially distributed array of five coin tactors. We performed a direct comparative assessment of these two VSS configurations with able-bodied subjects to investigate sensory perception, myoelectric control of grasp force and hand aperture with a prosthesis, and the effects of interface compliance. Six subjects completed a sensory perception experiment under a stimulation only paradigm; sixteen subjects completed experiments to compare VSS performance on perception and graded myoelectric control during grasp force and hand aperture tasks; and ten subjects completed experiments to investigate the effect of mechanical compliance of the myoelectric hand on the ability to control grasp force. Results indicated that sensory perception of vibrotactile feedback was not different for the two VSS configurations in the absence of active myoelectric control, but it was better with feedback from the coin tactor array than with the single actuator during myoelectric control of grasp force. Graded myoelectric control of grasp force and hand aperture was better with feedback from the coin tactor array than with the single actuator, and myoelectric control of grasp force was improved with a compliant grasp interface. Further investigations with VSS should focus on the use of coin tactor arrays by subjects with amputation in real-world settings and on improving control of grasp force by increasing the mechanical compliance of the hand.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0210956
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0210956
M3 - Article
C2 - 30650161
AN - SCOPUS:85060076827
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 14
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 1
M1 - e0210956
ER -