A 3D Manipulation Robot for Internet Use with Sensory Substitution

The Ihands project [1] at Roger Williams University is an online robot that allows Internet users to manipulate objects through a graphical user interface.The robot resembles a hand with two pairs of opposed fingers and a perpendicular thumb.The fingers are integrated with sensors to provide haptic feedback to the users.Users also have visual feedback and are able to move the hand and grab objects placed on a table.In its early stage, the Ihands project let users squeeze and pop balloons.This helped in identifying the weaknesses of the fingers and improvements have been made accordingly.Currently, users have the opportunity to model clay.The robot has proven to be robust and has operated for five months without any errors.Users can access the robot at ihands.rwu.edu.This paper will describe how the system was designed and how it works.