Underwater pre-touch based on artificial electric sense

This article exploits a bio-inspired sensor technology named artificial electric-sense to emulate underwater pre-touch. The sensor is considered as an electric finger controlled remotely by an operator to follow the boundaries of objects. Using electric measurements only, the approach feeds back pre-touch forces and torques to the operator through an haptic interface. These forces and torques are generated by a set of virtual electric charges and dipoles arranged on the probe and reacting in the electric field reflected by the objects. This model of emulated forces is passive and guarantees the stability of a position–position haptic feedback loop. The whole approach is assessed through a set of experiments carried out on a Cartesian slave robot coupled to an haptic interface. The obtained results show the feasibility of the concept and its robustness to different configurations of objects. Such an electro-haptic feedback opens new perspectives in both electric field sensing and underwater robotics.