Wearable Vibrotactile Interface Using Phantom Tactile Sensation for Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

Abstract We present a wearable vibrotactile feedback device consisting of four linear resonant actuators (LRAs) that are able to generate virtual stimuli, known as phantom tactile sensation, for human-robot interaction. Using an energy model, we can control the location and intensity of the virtual stimuli independently. The device consists of mostly 3D-printed rigid and flexible components and uses commercially available haptic drivers for actuation. The actuators have a rated frequency of 175 Hz which is close to the highest skin sensitivity regarding vibrations (150 to 300 Hz). Our experiment was conducted with a prototype consisting of two bracelets applied to the forearm and upper arm of six participants. Eight possible circumferential angles were stimulated, of which four originated from real actuators and four were generated by virtual stimuli. The responses given by the participants showed a nearly linear relationship within $$\pm {10}{^\circ }$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mo>∘</mml:mo> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> for the responded angle against the presented stimulus angle. These results show that phantom tactile sensation allows for an increase of spatial resolution to design vibrotactile interfaces for human-robot interaction with fewer actuators.