Investigation of Mechanical Responses in Fingertip Using Finite Element Model for Softness Perception

抄録

Softness perception of human is used to perceive material characteristics of touched surface and is applied to devices for haptic feedback and robots with tactile perception. However, there is a lack of study that investigates the mechanism of softness perception. In this study, we developed a fingertip finite element (FE) model to simulate contact between fingertip and plate and then validated the model and the simulation. Additionally, parametric study was conducted to investigate the effect of material properties of touched plate on mechanical responses of fingertip, which was expected to reveal the mechanism of softness perception. The simulation was validated in terms of length and width of contact area when touching surface. As a result, the simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental results reported in previous study. Furthermore, in the parametric study, material properties of touched plate FE model were adopted as parameters. Consequently, differences in minimum principal strain inside the fingertip FE model were found between simulation results using plate FE models with different material properties. Hence, the differences seem to be cues for softness perception.