Artificial Replacement of Human Sensation Using Haptic Transplant Technology

This study proposes a novel prosthetic hand that can artificially replace human sensation using haptic transplant technology. Conventional motorized prostheses are unable to precisely control the grasping force of the hand due to the lack of force sensation. In this paper, a haptic prosthetic hand is developed that allows for intuitive operation and precise force adjustment. These functions are realized by artificially transplanting the tactile sensation of a healthy part of the user's body to the amputated part of their body. The haptic transplant technology transmits the force sensation of the prosthesis to the master interface attached to the amputee's healthy part of body using bilateral control without a force sensor. Furthermore, variable compliance control is proposed for flexible adaptation to the shape of the object being grasped. The effectiveness of the proposed system was experimentally verified by comparing the controllability of the proposed system with that of a myoelectric prosthesis. In summary, an artificial replacement for human sensation was developed, and the intuitive operability and flexibility of the proposed system were confirmed.