Abstract
Human beings gain a lot of sense by using haptic perception. Especially, the sense of hardness is important for physician to palpate patients’ bodies. However, it is difficult to share the sense of hardness. Therefore haptic hardness sensor systems are demanded. For the development of the haptic sensor system, it is necessary to elucidate the mechanism of human perception about the sense of hardness. In previous studies, it has been clarified that not only physical property about objects such as young’s modulus but also contact state such as contact area affects the sense of hardness. Therefore, this study aims to measure contact state of finger-tip during evaluating hardness for flexible objects. For this purpose, measurement system using Optical Coherence Tomography was developed. And contact area and three-dimensional contact shape during evaluating hardness for flexible objects were measured.
