Proposal of a Real-Time Test Platform for Tactile Internet Systems

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 22; no. 24; p. 9865
• Main Authors: Alves, Pedro V A, Plentz, Patricia D M, Fernandes, Marcelo A C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 15.12.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Algorithms; Artificial intelligence; Communication; Embedded systems; Equipment Design; Feedback; Internet; Manipulators; Matlab; phantom omni; Real time; Robot arms; Robotics; Robotics - methods; Robots; Sensors; Simulation; Smoothness; Softness; Software; tactile glove; tactile internet; Touch; User-Computer Interface; Virtual reality; Wearable technology; tactile internet; phantom omni; tactile glove; real time
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s22249865

This work aimed to develop a real-time test platform for systems associated with the tactile internet area. The proposal comprises a master device, a communication channel and a slave device. The master device is a tactile glove (wearable technology) that works as a tactile interface based on vibratory feedback. The master device can interact with virtual elements (local or remote). The Matlab/Simulink environment and a robotics toolbox form the communication channel and the slave device. The communication channel introduces a bidirectional connection of variable latency, and the slave device is defined as a robotic phantom omni manipulator emulated in Matlab/Simulink. The virtual robotic manipulator, the slave device, can generate different types of tactile sensations in the tactile glove, that is, in the master device. The platform can model tactile sensations such as coarse roughness, fine roughness, smoothness, dripping and softness. The proposed platform presented adequate results and can be used to test various algorithms and methods correlated to the tactile internet.