Mastication plays a critical role in the food digestive process. A chewing robot was developed to simulate the food masticatory process to evaluate food properties. The artificial oral cavity of the robot failed to simulate the compliant contact between food and soft oral tissue and deserved redesign. The flourishing of soft robotics recently makes it possible to build a soft oral cavity. The design of an oral cavity made of silicone rubber is illustrated in this paper. The cavity is actuated by the inflation and deflation of an air chamber embedded on the inside of the cavity wall. The deformation of the chamber is studied through FEA simulation and experiments to validate its effectiveness. Moreover, the actuating frequencies of the chambers are tested to validate that they can perform food repositioning at the same pace as human chewing.
With the birth of the concept of a smart cockpit and the rapid development of a variety of central control screens, many smart phone applications have been integrated into the on-board infotainment system. However, the addition of these new functions will affect drivers' safe driving and move their eyes away from roads in order to interact with the on-board information system, causing potential safety hazards and even traffic accidents. More and more researchers have begun to pay attention to and optimise the automobile human-machine interface (HMI). In a laboratory environment, this paper studies when the on-board information system faces drivers 20°, 30° and 40°, which angle has the least impact on drivers' psychological load. NASA-TLX standard scale is used to record and calculate their psychological load. Finally, it is found that psychological load of drivers becomes the minimum at 40°, which can be used as a reference for future design of central control screen in new smart cockpit.
