Neuromorphic tactile sensing and haptic display enable fine distributed cutaneous feedback in telepresence

Abstract Touch encoding and display is still an unmet need in advanced robotics and telepresence, although somatosensation is crucial to enable safe human-machine cooperation and remote interaction. This study presents an Integrated Neuromorphic Tactile-Haptic Interface System (INTHIS) enabling a human operator to perceive tactile feedback over the upper limb skin in response to the real-time distributed tactile stimulation of a remote robotic e-skin integrating Fiber Bragg Gratings transducers. The INTHIS sensing interface features a spatiotemporal multilayer Spiking Neural Network, whose bioinspiration strategy guarantees the real-time transmission of the location and extension of tactile stimuli, with efficient use of information exchange and 16 mm localization Root Mean Squared Error. The INTHIS actuation interface integrates a wearable Forearm Haptic Display (FHD) to render physical interactions via neuromorphic triggering of a matrix of 23 miniaturized actuation units, achieving 96 % correct localization of the stimulated area over more than 1900 experimental trials. Overall, the INTHIS demonstrated the capability to build a real-time tactile link between the e-skin and the human skin, supporting robotic teleoperation and tactile telepresence applications.