US Patent 8724861 Fingertip force, location, and orientation sensor

An integrated system for studying human grasping techniques includes a fingerprint sensor and a force sensor for simultaneously measuring the contact position and orientation of a fingertip together with the contact force and torque exerted by the fingertip during a grasp. The system uses the fingerprint image obtained from the fingerprint sensor to identify the contact position and orientation of the fingertip based on fingerprint features such as the core point and local ridge orientations. The contact position and orientation of the fingertip are represented in a fingertip coordinate system. The system has utility in human grasping studies to characterize the fingertip contact.