A hybrid haptic feedback stimulation device to recover the missing sensation of the upper limb amputees

Providing sensory feedback for prostheses users increases the manipulation ability, as well as introduces a feeling of the embodiment. A novel hybrid haptic feedback stimulation system of the amputees of upper limb mutilation was designed, developed, and evaluated in this study. The haptic wearable device was built by mean of single servomotor as a pressure feedback display and a pair of vibration motors as a vibration feedback display. Accordingly, the pressure display is responsible for conveying the missing sensing of the contact pressure and its force level. While the vibration display has utilized to provide an indication about the continued contact pressure. Able-body participants are engaged to evaluate the performance of the proposed feedback stimulation system. The results show that the participants are able to distinguish the touch, the start of touch, the end of touch, and the range of force with 100 % accuracy. While 96 % and 88 % of the able-body participants are capable to identify the grasp and the slipping objects, respectively. Furthermore, the ability of the proposed haptic wearable device to convey the tactile sensory information to the user's brain without confusing or pre-training was improved.