Tactile colour pictogram to improve artwork appreciation of people with visual impairments

A recent development in tactile technology enables an improvement in the appreciation of the visual arts for people with visual impairment (PVI). The tactile sense, in conjunction with, or a possibly as an alternative to, the auditory sense, would allow PVIs to approach artwork in a more self‐driven and engaging way that would be difficult to achieve with just an auditory stimulus. Tactile colour pictograms (TCPs), which are raised geometric patterns, are ideographic characters that are designed to enable PVIs to identify colours and interpret information by touch. In this article, three TCPs are introduced to code colours in the Munsell colour system. Each colour pattern consists of a basic cell size of 10 mm × 10 mm to represent the patterns consistently in terms of regular shape. Each TCP consists of basic geometric patterns that are combined to create primary, secondary, and tertiary colour pictograms of shapes indicating colour hue, intensity and lightness. Each TCP represents 29 colours including six hues; they were then further expanded to represent 53 colours. Two of them did not increase the cell size, the other increased the cell size 1.5 times for some colours, such as yellow‐orange, yellow, blue, and blue‐purple. Our proposed TCPs use a slightly larger cell size compared to most tactile patterns currently used to indicate colour, but code for more colours. With user experience and identification tests, conducted with 23 visually impaired adults, the effectiveness of the TCPs suggests that they were helpful for the participants.     

一种基于阵列式触觉传感器的主动触觉搜索方法及仿真

本文在一种二指节手指模型的基础上，提出了一种新的主动触觉搜索策略和方法，综合利用阵列式触觉传感铭的输出图象来不断改变机械手的姿态，从而依次有序地搜索到三维物体的特征点，并据此生成物体的三维图形。此外还讨论了上述方法的计算机仿真实现。     

触觉传感器及其图象识别

本文讨论了两种触觉传感器,系统地阐述了这两种触觉传感器的数据采集系统和图象二值化的有关算法。     

Gaze cueing of attention: Visual attention, social cognition, and individual differences.

During social interactions, people's eyes convey a wealth of information about their direction of attention and their emotional and mental states. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of past and current research into the perception of gaze behavior and its effect on the observer. This encompasses the perception of gaze direction and its influence on perception of the other person, as well as gaze-following behavior such as joint attention, in infant, adult, and clinical populations. Particular focus is given to the gaze-cueing paradigm that has been used to investigate the mechanisms of joint attention. The contribution of this paradigm has been significant and will likely continue to advance knowledge across diverse fields within psychology and neuroscience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tactile display with tangential and normal skin displacement for robot-assisted surgery

This paper proposes a tactile display providing both shear and normal feedback to the fingertip for generating three-axis tactile feedback during teleoperation of a surgical robot. The display is composed of five balloons actuated by controlling the pneumatic pressure. The implemented display is 18?mm?×?18?mm?×?15?mm. This size is suitable for mounting the display onto the master controls of a surgical robot. The maximum normal and shear displacements are 2 and 1.3?mm, respectively. The proposed tactile display may provide perceivable stimuli to a human finger pad in all five directions: normal, distal, proximal, radial, and ulnar. This paper also reports on the results of psychophysical measurement of the minimum perceivable movement of the developed tactile display for each of the five directions.     

无源传感器对雷达目标指示中触发准则研究

针对多传感器协同跟踪中无源传感器对雷达的目标指示问题进行了深入分析,重点研究了目标的指示交接需求及其触发机制.分析了协同跟踪中的目标指示交接需求,同时依据无源与有源传感器协同特性建立顺序处理结构的多传感器融合跟踪模型.在此基础上,采用协方差控制思想设定无源传感器对雷达的目标指示触发准则.通过仿真对触发准则进行了验证,并讨论了目标指示触发时机的影响因素,确保传感器间的目标指示能够自发进行.     

炭黑/纳米Al2O3填充柔性压敏导电硅胶体系的研究

基于柔性触觉传感器中用到的压敏导电硅橡胶,研究添加纳米Al2O3对导电硅橡胶电特性的影响.从理论上研究纳米Al2O3改性的微观和宏观机理,并通过实验对添加不同量纳米Al2O3的压敏导电硅橡胶导电性、室温下的导电稳定性、压阻特性进行比较分析.实验结果表明:在炭黑浓度恒定的压敏导电硅橡胶中适量添加纳米Al2O3,可有效提高复合材料的导电性,稳定性,增大复合材料的压力敏感范围.     

精密压阻弹性体及力敏触觉传感器阵列

空气热氧化用多元醇溶剂热方法得到的金属钌纳米颗粒,可以得到纳米氧化钌颗粒,将其与金属钌纳米粉体混合,使其具有适当的聚集特性,将混合粉体与硅橡胶复合,呈现具有良好的压阻重复性和压阻敏感性,测量不同尺寸电极间的压阻行为,表明此种导电硅橡胶在毫米尺寸以上呈现一定的标度不变性,表明材料在一定尺寸范围内满足微型化要求,适用于集成的压阻弹性体应力测量阵列,我们制备了测量面载荷分布的阵列电极,设计了用于动态触觉传感测量的电路和支持软件,结果表明,针对压阻材料电阻/载荷敏感特性,通过每个压阻单元微秒级的信号获取和数据处理,可以实现毫米尺度的静态或动态载荷三维成像,该传感阵列的可重复和定量特性使其基本满足实用的人体工学器件要求。     

An Artificial Motion and Tactile Receptor Constructed by Hyperelastic Double Physically Cross-Linked Silk Fibroin Ionoelastomer

Ionotronic artificial motion and tactile receptor (i-AMTR) is essential to realize an interactive human-machine interface. However, an i-AMTR that effectively mimics the composition, structure, mechanics, and multi-functionality of human skin, called humanoid i-AMTR, is yet to be developed. To bridge this technological gap, this study proposes a strategy that combines molecular structure design and function integration to construct a humanoid i-AMTR. Herein, a silk fibroin ionoelastomer (SFIE) with double cross-linked molecular structure is designed to mimic the composition and structure of human skin, thereby resolving the conflict of stretchability, softness, and resilience, suffered by many previously reported ionotronics. Functionally, electromechanical sensing and triboelectricity-based tactile perception are integrated into SFIE, to enable simultaneous perception of both motion and tactile inputs. By further leveraging the machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) techniques, the proposed SFIE-based humanoid i-AMTR precisely senses the movement of human body and accurately sortball objects made of different materials. Notably, the success rate for 610 sorting tests reaches as high as 92.3%. These promising results essentially demonstrate a massive potential of humanoid i-AMTR in the fields of sorting robots, rehabilitation medicine, and augmented reality.     

3D Printable One-Part Carbon Nanotube-Elastomer Ink for Health Monitoring Applications

3D printing of conductive elastomers is a promising route to personalized health monitoring applications due to its flexibility and biocompatibility. Here, a one-part, highly conductive, flexible, stretchable, 3D printable carbon nanotube (CNT)-silicone composite is developed and thoroughly characterized. The one-part nature of the inks: i) enables printing without prior mixing and cures under ambient conditions; ii) allows direct dispensing at ≈100 µm resolution printability on nonpolar and polar substrates; iii) forms both self-supporting and high-aspect-ratio structures, key aspects in additive biomanufacturing that eliminate the need for sacrificial layers; and iv) lends efficient, reproducible, and highly sensitive responses to various tensile and compressive stimuli. The high electrical and thermal conductivity of the CNT-silicone composite is further extended to facilitate use as a flexible and stretchable heating element, with applications in body temperature regulation, water distillation, and dual temperature sensing and Joule heating. Overall, the facile fabrication of this composite points to excellent synergy with direct ink writing and can be used to prepare patient-specific wearable electronics for motion detection and cardiac and respiratory monitoring devices and toward advanced personal health tracking and bionic skin applications.