Continuous tactile perception algorithms for vibrotactile displays

Abstract

Today, the digital community has strongly allied with rich sensory human computer interfaces (HCIs) to better understand how people interact via their sense of touch. A variety of touch interaction systems are essential for real environments, such as teleconferencing systems for remote interpersonal communications, and virtual environments, such as interacting with virtual scenes using personal computers for gaming applications. Through our sense of touch, we are capable of perceiving different types of stimuli such as pressure, vibration, pain, temperature and position. Psychologists, physiologists, and engineers have collaborated to study touch and advance the understanding of the human senses. In this research at the University of Ottawa, we leverage knowledge of the psychology and perception of haptics to better understand the human tactile sensory system. We utilize a human sensory illusion called the "funnelling illusion" to display a dynamic tactile sensation, such as a smooth, continuous sensation on the human skin, with low-resolution vibrotactile actuators. After obtaining the illusion of a continuous movement of one tactile stimulus, we investigate the influence of temporal intensity changes of adjacent vibrotactile actuators located on the dorsal of the human forearm and upper arm. Furthermore, we examine the quality of the continuous movement according to the intensity change of the vibrotactile actuators in a linear and logarithmic pattern. Initial psychophysical experiments have revealed correlations between the distance, orientation and temporal order of the vibrotactile actuators with the preferred intensity variation, substantiating our research direction.