Dental School, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA. cstohler@umaryland.edu
A hand-held, servo-controlled tissue palpation device (SCPD) was developed to measure the pressure-pain characteristics of human tissue for disease states linked to altered pressure-pain sensitivity. The design was based on an adaptive controller using force feedback to reach and maintain a desired force in spite of movements of the operator's hand holding the device or positional changes of the subject.