This paper reports experimental results on a surgical grasping forceps that equips a vibration actuator to enhance a tactile perception ability. A short-time exposure of tactile receptors to sub-sensory white-noise vibration is known to improve perception ability. This phenomenon, called stochastic resonance (SR) in the somatosensory system, is expected to enhance the sense of touch when the weak vibration is applied, and thereby improve associated motor skills. To investigate the effect of the noise intensity, a summing network of FitzHugh-Nagumo model neurons was built. The simulation results showed that appropriate noise intensity improves the coherence between the input stimuli and the network response. To confirm the efficacy of the proposed method on the surgical grasping forceps, passive and active sensory tests have been conducted. A lead zirconate titanate (PZT) actuator was attached on the grip of the forceps to generate the physical noise. The experimental results show that the appropriate noise improves the detection capability of the stimuli.
