Grip-slip: A Slip/Shear tactile display master unit for grip tasks

The focus of this work is the development of a master tactile display unit, that can control a slave gripper and display to the operator the slip/shear developed between the gripper and the held object in the slave unit. Unlike previous slip/shear tactile displays, this unit is designed especially for grasping tasks to deliver large forces that are typical when grasping relatively heavy objects. Two experiments were performed to investigate the influence of slip display on human force modulation during a slip facilitated tasks. Experimental results show a significant improvement in response time to accidental slip when slip feedback is available, comparing to visual feedback. An experiment with controlled slip showed a tendency that slip display has an effect of increasing grip force in controlled slip tasks, while visual display has a reverse effect of decreasing the grip force.