From a pair of gloves designed to interact at the tactile perception level with the wearer, learning precise manual skills and transferring physical human-machine interaction in remote operations performed by robotic systems.

Tactile sensitivity, just like seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting, helps us pick up info about the world around us. It lets us get to grips with our surroundings, interact with them effectively, and adapt as needed.

 Specifically, when two people touch and share feedback, it becomes a crucial tool in learning how to move better and becoming more aware of our bodies and their movements. In virtual learning spaces, «getting vibrotactile feedback can really help users get a hands-on feel for a task, helping them get better at manual tasks». [source: “Vibrotactile feedback in virtual motor learning: A systematic review” – Applied Ergonomics, May 2022].

In high-tech examples like remote robotic surgery, sharing tactile info between the doctor and the machine is super important for providing health services from afar, in real time. In this case, the technology “mediating” the human-robot tactile interaction refers to the Tactile Internet (TI) – or “tactile internet” – an internet network that, today, leveraging 5G (and in the coming years, 6G), as well as virtual and augmented reality support, makes possible tactile exchange with visual feedback, allowing people to perceive their environment through the machine with very low latency [source: “A smart contract-based robotic surgery authentication system for healthcare using 6G-Tactile Internet” – Computer Networks, January 2024].

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TAKEAWAYS

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Touch tech transfer: what’s the best way to detect touch?

The team from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT, who wrote about their work in “Adaptive tactile interaction transfer via digitally embroidered smart gloves” (published in Nature Communications on January 29, 2024), points out a big challenge we face today. Making it possible for people to interact and get feedback through touch, whether they’re side by side or miles apart, boils down to how intuitively we can transfer the sense of touch. This means getting the “feel” of touch right, «because it needs detection systems that can fit into our everyday lives without a hitch».

Lately, the teams working on this have been looking into new materials and ways to pass on touch sensations, including using tech like electrical, pneumatic, piezoelectric, ultrasonic, and electromagnetic systems.

Aiming to bring together touch detection and feedback, recent studies are all about skin-close human-machine interfaces that work through tactile interactions of the hands.

But, even with the promise this area shows, past attempts ran into hurdles, especially with how things are made, which kinda throws a wrench in making these systems widely available, sturdy, and easy to meld with our natural skin.

Then there’s another snag: how differently each person’s hand feels touch. This makes it tricky to come up with a one-size-fits-all way for humans and machines to communicate smoothly and reliably. To make the touch experience something that feels the same across the board, consistent, and in tune for everyone, the MIT researchers reckon we should keep tweaking to a minimum for each user.

Gloves with built-in sensors and motors for tactile interactions

Leaning into human-machine interfaces that work through tactile interactions of the hands, the team at MIT is pushing past the usual design and practicality hurdles with a gadget you can wear comfortably, like gloves. These aren’t ordinary gloves though; they’re kitted out with touch sensors and motors that vibrate to give feedback right where you need it on your hand. This tech aims to show you how to move your hands just right for specific tasks, helping you pick up new skills that need a careful touch.

Crafted with a digital embroidery machine that stitches the sensors and motors right in, these clever gloves could change the game for learning how to play musical instruments, among other things. Take playing a keyboard, for example: if you’ve got a melody lined up on a section of keys, these gloves can catch the order your fingers hit the keys:

«Thanks to a smart learning system, that finger sequence gets turned into touch feedback that goes straight into the gloves as “play-by-play” instructions. With your hands above those keys, the gloves’ vibe motors tickle the fingers that should be hitting the keys underneath, transferring to the user the tactile interactions useful for playing the previously recorded melody»

And because everyone feels touch a bit differently, the smart system in these gloves «figures out how to tweak that touchy-feely guidance so it feels just right for each person wearing them».

In a couple more tests the team ran, these gloves for tactile interactions were put through their paces in laptop video games. And guess what? Players wearing these techy gloves scored way higher. They nailed following a tricky, twisty path without a hitch in one game and in another, they aced collecting items while keeping their balance all the way to the finish line.

Gloves for tactile interactions in remote operations controlled by robotic arms

In another cool experiment, the researchers showed off how their gloves made for tactile interactions can send feelings of force over to robotic arms from far away. They use the Tactile Internet and some virtual and augmented reality magic to do this, teaching the robots to handle delicate grabbing jobs just like a human would.

They had human operators put on these smart gloves and, from a distance, taught a robot system how to deal with different kinds of bread without squishing them.

«By showing and teaching machines how to grab and handle things the best way from afar, human operators could really get robotic systems to do things right in places like factories or, thinking ahead, in hospitals. This way, robots could work together with people more safely and usefully», the authors say.

They also mention that in the robotics world, the tech that makes these smart gloves work for tactile interactions (still being tested) is pretty groundbreaking. The sensors and motors inside can «pick up and mimic touchy feels almost like our skin does and send them over», making it super easy for machines to get a grip on their surroundings by feeling their way around.

Glimpses of Futures

The smart gloves MIT’s been working on could really shake things up for teaching specific hand skills and boosting how well people do in certain tasks, not to mention helping out with robot-assisted jobs from miles away.

Looking ahead, the kind of tactile interactions these gloves were made for could also come in handy for all sorts of experiences, whether we’re talking face-to-face or across the distance, especially for people with different learning needs tied to cognitive-motor disabilities.

Let’s dive into some future scenarios using the STEPS matrix, eyeing up the potential impacts of evolving this skin-like interface – all about getting hands to talk and listen – from social, tech, economic, political, and eco-friendly angles.

S – SOCIAL: looking ahead at the future evolution of smart gloves with tactile feedback, the most significant impact is expected in the area of high-level virtual reality training. This could positively affect education for professionals who require particularly complex manual dexterity in terms of precision and meticulousness, including – to name just a few examples – surgeons, those who handle chemicals, and pilots. Another social repercussion then relates to the in-person teaching of motor and manual practices and the reeducation of hand movements for patients suffering from conditions that have compromised the use of their upper limbs.

T – TECHNOLOGICAL: down the road, MIT’s skin-close interface for tactile interactions might just leap beyond making hands. Imagine getting feedback that’s even more in-depth and tweaks that let it chat with legs, feet, and other body bits that aren’t as touchy as arms and hands. Plus, the researchers are thinking big – «…right now, it’s all about simple moves like pushing buttons or grabbing stuff, but future upgrades could tap into heaps more user info, leading to wearables that get the whole hand motion and touch perception dance».

E – ECONOMIC: in a future scenario where smart gloves with tactile feedback play a role in virtual training aimed at teaching complex manual skills requiring maximum precision, as well as in the reeducation of hand movements for those with disabilities, the creation of more dedicated professional figures with cross-disciplinary skills will become crucial. These skills range from the Tech area to the methodological-educational field, from those related to the users’ operational domain to medical areas for patients who have lost hand movement coordination.

P – POLITICAL: learning and teaching with the help of touch feedback from these cutting-edge gloves, especially aimed at nailing manual skills for precision-heavy tasks (think medical and surgical stuff), will need to play nice with the rules and regs laid down by the powers-that-be in each country. Especially important will be making sure motor rehab for the disabled, through tactile interactions, is something everyone can get into, regardless of socio-economic level.

S – SUSTAINABILITY: the tech’s next steps in letting smart gloves remotely pass on touch feedback to robots, teaching them how to tackle tricky grabs or sensitive handling, means looking forward to a future with robots that are safer buddies in factories, storage spots, and hospitals. This is all about sticking to eco-social goals that keep workplaces healthy and safe, focusing on what’s best for employees and their surroundings, including the tech they work alongside.