• telemanipulation
• feedback
• haptic
• piezoelectric sensor
• robotic
• soft
• wearable
• testing

Robotic telemanipulation is a field of robotics concerned with enabling a human operator to control a robot remotely to perform specific tasks. However, providing effective sensory feedback in this application is still an open challenge, as traditional solutions have significant limitations in terms of workspace and size. Haptic feedback in particular has been shown to improve the performance of such systems in terms of completion time, accuracy and force exerted.
This thesis aims at the realization and validation of a sensory feedback system for the telemanipulation of an anthropomorphic robotic hand. The project was divided into two modules. The first module focused on sensing the robotic hand in order to identify contact and release events during the grasping act, using piezoelectric sensors. The second module was devoted to the design of a wearable and soft actuation system to deliver discrete stimulation (DESC) on the user's hand based on sensor signals. The two modules were integrated and tested to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the system.