論文

This research is an exploratory work aimed at evaluating the ability of across-body vibration patterns to communicate emotions. We developed an affective haptic chair that allows seated users to feel tactile sensation around the upper and lower back, bottom, and leg area. We tested the system in two studies. The first study used 25 user-generated haptic patterns to represent five basic emotions, and suggested that across-body haptic patterns are effective in conveying emotions. In the second study, we tested four basic directional patterns identified in study 1 and validated the effect of up, down, left, and right movement on users' emotional states. We observed an improvement in valence value from "up" movement, while the "down" movement was expressed to induce a sense of calmness in users. These findings could be useful in designing future affective furniture.

To obtain a fluent human-robot collaboration, reciprocal awareness is fundamental. In this paper, we propose to achieve it by creating a haptic connection between the human operator and the collaborative robot. Data coming from a wearable skin vibration sensor are used by the robot to recognize human actions, and vibrotactile signals are used to inform the human about the correct recognition of her/his actions. It is shown that the proposed communication paradigm, based on shared haptic perception, allows to improve cycle time performance in a complex human-robot collaborative task.

For mobility-impaired people, the wheelchair is considered as a main navigation and accessibility device. However, due to the inherited design of the chair, the user is restricted to utilize his hand all the time during navigation resulting in a dual impairment. Our proposed system, SlideFusion, expands on previous work of collaborative and assistive technologies for accessibility scenarios. SlideFusion is focused on the remote collaboration of the mobility impaired person, that an operator can remotely access an avatar embedded into the wheelchair. To reduce the physical and cognitive overload on the wheelchair user, we propose the use of eye gaze modality sharing with the remote operator. The eye gaze modality enables implicit interactions that do not require the user to point or verbally say, thus leveraging indirect communication. By using this, not only accessibility can be provided to wheelchair users and their caregivers, but also hearing impairments and pronunciation disorders are applicable.

We present "Sophroneo: Fear not", a VR horror experience with thermal feedback interface. To emphasize the supernatural side of the experience we introduce several innovative approaches, such as long intense cold feedback, liminal audio and physiological feedback loops. We built a wearable thermal feedback setup with water-cooled Peltier TEC elements for long cold sensations to improve the immersion and to increase the sense of fear and unease. At several points of the experience the player will have to close their eyes and interact with the VR environment depending on their other senses alone.

© 2018 Association for Computing Machinery. This paper introduces Bubble Jumper, a super human sport enhancing your jump and enlarge your bodies circumference (grith) simulating an augmented sumo wrestler. We focus on the experience of superhuman strength in the legs and giving you the feeling of a larger body for the sport. We present the historical context of Sumo as well as our approach to augment the sport into Bubble Jumper. We show some early design prototypes and the iterative process to improve them, as well as rules and ideas for digital augmentation of the sport.

© 2017 IEEE. Immersive media technology such as virtual reality provides the unique opportunity to place participants in multi-sensory hyper-connected universes where auditory and visual senses are intimately connected, and worlds can be built out of fractal geometries. Crystal Vibes is an artistic piece that combines spatial audio, endless fractal geometries, full-body haptic vibration feedback and sound-to-colour visualisation based on empirical biological functions related to human auditory and visual perception. Exhibited at Sundance Film Festival New Frontier in January 2017, and at Kaleidoscope Showcase Vol. 2 in 10 cities across the world, in this paper we report on insights from user feedback, as well as details of the technical implementation, including real-time rendering of seemingly infinite fractal-like structures, the haptic design philosophy and the sound-visualisation technique. Finally, we comment on the psychology and utility of such virtual environments.

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. Along with the development of information technology and tactile technology, it has become possible to share human haptic experiences via the Internet. In this research, we propose HaptI/O a technology that allows easy sharing and communication of haptic experiences. HaptI/O devices are physical network nodes that can perform as gateways to both input or output the haptic information from a source such as the human body or a tangible object. HaptI/O proposed in this research focuses on the (1) ease of sharing haptic information with a focus on usability (2) share Haptic information among multiple users (3) usage of the HaptI/O as a mobile device. As a result of user testing of the implemented HaptI/O, it was confirmed that user’s information perception in remote communication was improved.

© 2018 IEEE. Illusory body ownership can be induced by visual-Tactile stimulation or visual-motor synchronicity. We aimed to test whether a right thumb could be remapped to a virtual right arm and illusory body ownership of the virtual arm induced through synchronous movements of the right thumb and the virtual right arm. We presented the virtual right arm in synchronization with movements of a participant's right thumb on a head-mounted display (HMD). We found that the participants felt as though their right thumb became the right arm, and that the right arm belonged to their own body.

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. We present LiquidReality, a wearable system that simulates wetness sensations directly on the user’s face for immersive virtual reality applications. The LiquidReality system consists of a headmounted display integrated with thermal and vibrotactile modules that provides co-located haptic feedback with the displayed visuals. With this system, we conducted a preliminary study that evaluated nine types of thermal and thermal/vibrotactile stimuli to induce a wetness sensation on the user’s face. Our results indicate that thermal only stimuli and low frequency vibrotactile stimuli (combined with thermal) induced better wetness perception. Next, using the results from this preliminary study, we evaluated the immersion enhancement when using the LiquidReality system in combination with related visuals. The results indicate that using the LiquidReality system with related visuals, enhances the level of immersion for the user.

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018. In this paper, we propose mobile HapticAid, a wearable haptic augmentation system which combines a polyvinlidene flouride (PVDF) skin vibration sensor, a mobile platform such as iOS devices and TECHTILE amplifier. It can enhance haptic perception through a PVDF skin vibration sensor and vibro-tactile feedback. This system is small enough to be portable. The participants will be able to experience the enhancement of touch objects.

© 2019, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. We propose Liquid-VR, a system that simulates wetness and liquid sensations for the whole body by providing a combination of thermal and vibrotactile stimuli from the user’s face and across the upper body to the lower body. A head mounted display with thermal and vibrotactile modules simulates the wetness sensations on the face with the displayed visuals. These sensations are carried through out the body by using an array of vibrotactile modules placed on the collarbones and the feet actuated to simulate moving phantom sensations. We demonstrate this experience through virtual reality application scenarios such as being in a shower or being in side a glass of liquid.