Friction forces on human finger skin

Abstract

The prehension of the small objects with the human fingers is depending on the friction and adherence between finger’s skin and object’s surface. The design of finger pads for robotic and prosthetic hands must simulate both the human finger friction and adherence and elastic deformation, especially for small objects. In this paper, the authors have experimentally investigated the friction forces and friction coefficients in a dry sliding contact tribosystem using Microtribometer CETR UMT-2. A steel cylinder was sliding on the human finger with speeds between 0.5 to 10 mm/s at normal loads up to 10 N. The results showed that the friction coefficient increases with the sliding speed and decreases with the normal load. Also, it was evidenced the presence of the adherence and sliding zones during the laterally cyclic movement of steel cylinder as function of the normal loads and sliding speeds. A general equation for the friction coefficient as function of sliding speed and normal load has been obtained. Therefore, the experimental results offer important information to select the adequate artificial skin materials for robotic finger pads, often overlooked, with relatively simple shapes and mechanical properties typically used.