Tactile Sensing using a Force Model of a Finger Tip

Recent development of information technology has made tangible space possible. It provides an effective interaction between a human and entities in a cyberspace. In this paper, a tactile sensing system to transfer tactile sensation, which is among the information to be transferred to and from the cyberspace, is investigated. Force felt by a human finger scanning an object is modeled as a function of indentation, which represents the deformation of the finger by the object. A force model by Fung, which gives the force as a function of indentation when the finger is pressed down, is adopted to represent the force from finger scanning an object. The model is used to predict the normal force with parameters estimated with different specimen and speed