Contact Force Estimation Based On Fingertip Image And Application To Human Machine Interface

This research aims to develop a human machine interface for patients with absolute rest, which exploits the contact force of the fingertip. The interface outputs the magnitude and direction of the contact force, based on the change of the nail color extracted from images with a camera. This interface can determine the force direction in the four ones: forward, back, left, and right. An experiment to operate the mouse cursor on the computer with this interface and track pad shows this interface can accurately operate the mouse cursor than track pad with the same range of fingertip movement.