The Effect of Actuation Speed on the Perception Threshold of a Squeezing Soft Actuator

article
The actuation speed of a pressure stimulus may influence its perception threshold. This is relevant for the design of haptic actuators and haptic interaction. We ran a study using a motorized ribbon to apply pressure stimuli (squeezes) to the arm at three different actuation speeds and used the PSI method to find the perception threshold for 21 participants. We found a significant effect of actuation speed on the perception threshold. Namely, a lower speed seems to increase the thresholds of normal force, pressure and indentation. This could be due to multiple factors like temporal summation, stimulating a larger population of mechanoreceptors for faster stimuli, and different responses of SA and RA receptors to stimuli of varying speeds. Our results show that actuation speed is an important parameter for the design of new haptic actuators and the design of haptic interaction for pressure. Author
TNO Identifier
986392
ISSN
19391412
Source
IEEE Transactions on Haptics, pp. 1-6.
Pages
1-6