Sensory Perception & Interaction Research Group

The smart fur prototype is a new type of touch sensor built with conductive fur, with the goal of aiding in gesture recognition in the Haptic Creature system.
Conductive threads are sewn into faux animal-like fur, creating a weak circuit. When a person touches the fur, the hand motion changes the resistance in the circuit, which is reflected in voltage level changes across the fur. By sampling these voltage changes, we are able to classify gesture using machine learning methods.