Portable heat transfer measurement system mimicking human thermal sensation

Abstract

In this study, we developed a portable heat transfer measurement module which measures the heat transfer characteristics of a contact object by mimicking the human thermal sensation mechanism. By applying a structure which improves the contact interface characteristics and allows the module and an object to remain in contact with a constant force, the developed portable heat transfer measurement module can reliably measure the thermal characteristics of a contact object within one second in an uncontrolled environment. We discriminated 20 fabrics using their heat transfer characteristics which was measured by the developed module in a portable environment. We observed that the heat transfer characteristics measured by our module had a high correlation (R2 value = 0.949) with the human perceived coolness, obtained from a psychological tactile survey result on the same 20 fabrics. Our module can effectively represent the numerical value predicting the warmth/coolness which a person would perceive from a contact object, so it may be possible to apply the module to biomedical and robotic applications which require the measurement and the classification of the heat transfer characteristics of contact objects.