• neural networks
• neuromorphic engineering
• psychophysics
• robotic avatar
• somatosensory system
• tactile display
• teleoperation
• telepresence
• wearable haptics

This work aims at establishing a perceptual tactile link between a robot and a remote human operator at the level of a large area of the skin. To this purpose, an artificial skin and a distributed, wearable tactile display are linked by a developed neuromorphic sensing and rendering approach. The sensing interface is constituted by the cascade of a soft e-skin, featuring optical fiber strain sensors, and a custom neural network, designed with bioinspired neuromorphic techniques. The actuation interface is constituted by a low-weight wearable haptic display featuring a fine distribution of vibrotactile unities inside a 3D-printed polymeric mesh, which fits the entirety of a human forearm and receives data via a wireless communication protocol. Both the sensing and the actuation interfaces are tested with standard psychophysical protocols to assess the capability of the system in providing haptic cues to a human subject, showing promising results in rendering the location of tactile stimuli. This makes the current work one of the first and more complete attempts at the realization of a tactile link between a robot and a remote human operator based on a wearable tactile display featuring spatially related actuators over a large body part, filling a crucial gap that has been evidenced in the literature related to robotic avatars and telepresence systems to act and interact bidirectionally and physically in assistive, rehabilitation, surgical, and industrial robotics scenarios.