Study on the human perception of incipient and overall slippages using a 2D FE fingertip model

Slippage on the fingertips is an important phenomenon that occurs constantly in our daily life. However, the mechanism behind the slippage, especially incipient slippage, which appears prior to overall slippage, has not been fully understood. In this paper, a 2D finite element (FE) model of the human fingertip was presented to study how the human fingertip perceives slippages. The 2D geometries of the fingertip were generated based on magnetic resonance (MR) images. The fingertip model consisted of four layers: epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous tissue, and distal phalanx. The microstructures of the intermediate and limiting ridges in between the epidermis and dermis layers were manually constructed to locate four types of mechanoreceptors. Simulations of pushing and sliding motions were implemented, and mechanical measures of the acceleration and strain energy density (SED) were investigated at the locations of the mechanoreceptors. We found that both incipient and overall slippages could be clearly detected using the acceleration signal captured by the FA-I and SA-I receptors. The SED measurement does not provide useful information for the slippage detection.