What the robot´s hand should tell the robot´s brain: feature detection in a biological neural network

Biological neural networks in the somatosensory system process haptic information from the hand when it grasps and manipulates objects. The author describes how tactile sensors in the skin detect surface features which are of functional importance to the organism and how this information is further transformed by the central nervous system. The parallel processing mechanisms used by the primate hand may be instructive for developing intelligent controllers for robotic hands.<>