Background Vibrotactile feedback systems are widely used in assistive technology,wearable devices,and virtual environments to deliver precise tactile information.The timing of interstimulus intervals(ISIs)plays a crit...Background Vibrotactile feedback systems are widely used in assistive technology,wearable devices,and virtual environments to deliver precise tactile information.The timing of interstimulus intervals(ISIs)plays a critical role in determining how accurately users perceive and interpret vibrotactile patterns.The optimal use of ISIs can increase the effectiveness of these systems,improve user interaction,and enable reliable,intuitive feedback in diverse applications.We examined how different interstimulus intervals ISIs impact the accuracy of vibrotactile pattern recognition.Methods Participants wore a forearm-mounted device with six voice coil actuators arranged in a 3×2 grid,delivering Braille-based vibrotactile patterns sequentially at ISIs ranging from 10 to 2500 ms.Eight participants performed identification tasks involving Icelandic Braille patterns categorized as either short(2-3 actuators)or long(4-5 actuators).A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to assess the effects of ISI,pattern type,and practice(across two testing blocks)on pattern recognition accuracy.Results For short patterns,accuracy was highest(92%-98%)at ISIs of 50-700 ms,with peak performance at 300 ms.For long patterns,accuracy reached 86%-94%at ISIs of 100-500 ms,peaking at 400 ms.Participants were more accurate with short patterns,and performance improved significantly over time for both short and long patterns,highlighting the importance of training for vibrotactile pattern recognition.Conclusions These results underscore the importance of careful selection of ISIs in vibrotactile feedback systems for accurate pattern identification.The findings provide valuable insights for conveying tactile information using wearable devices,contributing to better tactile feedback and performance in applications requiring precise vibrotactile information delivery.展开更多
Pacinian corpuscle is a tactile receptor that responds to high-frequency(20-1000 Hz)vibration and has high-pass filtering and mechanical signal amplification functions.It is the main receptor of vibration tactility cl...Pacinian corpuscle is a tactile receptor that responds to high-frequency(20-1000 Hz)vibration and has high-pass filtering and mechanical signal amplification functions.It is the main receptor of vibration tactility closely related to fine touch sensation,which is the ability to perceive and localize objects’shape,texture,and size.Currently,it is still difficult to measure and calculate the friction generated by robots grasping objects.The resolution of touch and vibration sensors cannot satisfy the demand for understanding tribological behavior.The simulation of Pacinian corpuscles’structure and replication of its key functions will bring richer touch information to robots.In this review article,the structure and functions of Pacinian corpuscles are summarized from the internal structure of a single Pacinian corpuscle and the spatial distribution of multiple Pacinian corpuscles.Then,theoretical models and research on the bionics design of Pacinian corpuscles are introduced based on the three reception processes of Pacinian corpuscles:mechanical transmission,electromechanical transduction,and neural excitation.Finally,the bottlenecks of current research on the simulation of Pacinian corpuscles are summarized,followed by the proposal of research ideas on the simulation of Pacinian corpuscles.展开更多
To improve the sense of reality on perception, an improved algorithm of 3D shape haptic rendering is put forward based on a finger mounted vibrotactile device. The principle is that the interactive information and the...To improve the sense of reality on perception, an improved algorithm of 3D shape haptic rendering is put forward based on a finger mounted vibrotactile device. The principle is that the interactive information and the shape information are conveyed to users when they touch virtual objects at mobile terminals by attaching the vibrotactile feedback on a fingertip. The extraction of shape characteristics, the interactive information and the mapping of shape in formation of vibration stimulation are key parts of the proposed algorithm to realize the real tactile rendering. The contact status of the interaction process, the height information and local gradient of the touch point are regarded as shape information and used to control the vibration intension, rhythm and distribution of the vibrators. With different contact status and shape information, the vibration pattern can be adjusted in time to imitate the outlines of virtual objects. Finally, the effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by shape perception experiments. The results show that the improved algorithm is effective for 3D shape haptic rendering.展开更多
Background In the past few years,augmented reality(AR)has rapidly advanced and has been applied in different fields.One of the successful AR applications is the immersive and interactive serious games,which can be use...Background In the past few years,augmented reality(AR)has rapidly advanced and has been applied in different fields.One of the successful AR applications is the immersive and interactive serious games,which can be used for education and learning purposes.Methods In this project,a prototype of an AR serious game is developed and demonstrated.Gamers utilize a head-mounted device and a vibrotactile feedback jacket to explore and interact with the AR serious game.Fourteen vibration actuators are embedded in the vibrotactile feedback jacket to generate immersive AR experience.These vibration actuators are triggered in accordance with the designed game scripts.Various vibration patterns and intensity levels are synthesized in different game scenes.This article presents the details of the entire software development of the AR serious game,including game scripts,game scenes with AR effects design,signal processing flow,behavior design,and communication configuration.Graphics computations are processed using the graphics processing unit in the system.Results/Conclusions The performance of the AR serious game prototype is evaluated and analyzed.The computation loads and resource utilization of normal game scenes and heavy computation scenes are compared.With 14 vibration actuators placed at different body positions,various vibration patterns and intensity levels can be generated by the vibrotactile feedback jacket,providing different real-world feedback.The prototype of this AR serious game can be valuable in building large-scale AR or virtual reality educational and entertainment games.Possible future improvements of the proposed prototype are also discussed in this article.展开更多
Asynchronous brain-computer interfaces(aBCIs)using brain switches have demonstrated significant reliability and usability in discriminating a user's control intention and resting state.However,there is a rare rese...Asynchronous brain-computer interfaces(aBCIs)using brain switches have demonstrated significant reliability and usability in discriminating a user's control intention and resting state.However,there is a rare research demonstration of the BCI brain switch independent of visual feedback;the drawback of relying on visual channels might be disadvantageous in exploring the surrounding environment and inappropriate for some target users with severe disability.In this study,we proposed a vibrotactile-based brain switch using a virtual physical model to integrate the weak intention information to address the challenge without visual feedback.Specifically,two vibrators were worn on the left and right ankles to convey the system's swing direction to the subject,and the subject completed the periodic motor imagery task according to the vibrotactile feedback direction until the intention information was integrated enough to trigger the brain switch.A control experiment with visual feedback and vibrotactile feedback was conducted,respectively.The results showed that the triggering time for visual feedback was 54±67 s,the triggering time for vibration feedback was 53±50 s,and the false triggering rate(or false positive rate,FPR)was 1.3±1.5 and 1.1±1.4 FP/h,respectively.These results show that the proposed brain switch framework based on virtual physical systems does not need to rely on the visual pathway and can provide good reliability and triggering speed.It sheds light on developing asynchronous visual independent brain-computer interface systems.展开更多
To guide pedestrians to navigate in a strange city and reduce the cognitive overload suffered when walking, thermal change direction, vibration stimulation direction, intensity variation and body location are employed...To guide pedestrians to navigate in a strange city and reduce the cognitive overload suffered when walking, thermal change direction, vibration stimulation direction, intensity variation and body location are employed to construct four-parameter compound tactons.They are mapped to four different types of navigation message： route attribute, intersection type, distance and heading direction. One psychological experiment was conducted. The derived confusion matrices were used to investigate recognition rates and information transfer for compound tactons,and non-parameter tests were employed to analyze the effect of each parameter on the number of correct responses.Experimental results show that the overall identification rate for four-parameter tactons is 88.72% by using different tactile parameters,and 19.64 icons can be identified reliably in all 32 tactile icons according to the information transfer value. Thermal changes can be an effective supplement to vibrotactile icons. This suggests that compound tactons will be a promising method of conveying complex information when navigating in a virtual or real urban environment.展开更多
An increasing number of studies have focused on providing rich tactile feedback in virtual reality interactive scenarios.In this study,we addressed a tapping scenario in virtual reality by designing MatStick,a solutio...An increasing number of studies have focused on providing rich tactile feedback in virtual reality interactive scenarios.In this study,we addressed a tapping scenario in virtual reality by designing MatStick,a solution capable of offering diverse tapping sensations.MatStick utilizes a soft physical base to provide force feedback and modulates the instantaneous vibration of the base using a voice coil motor,thereby altering the perception of the base material.We conducted two psychophysical experiments and a subjective evaluation to assess the capabilities of MatStick.The results demonstrate that MatStick can deliver rich tapping sensations.Although users may find it challenging to directly correlate the tapping sensation with the actual physical material based solely on tactile feedback,in immersive scenarios combined with visual and auditory cues,MatStick significantly enhances the user's interaction experience.展开更多
Background Adequate data collection can enhance the realism of online rendering or offline playback of haptic surface textures.A parallel challenge is to reduce communication delays and improve storage space utilizati...Background Adequate data collection can enhance the realism of online rendering or offline playback of haptic surface textures.A parallel challenge is to reduce communication delays and improve storage space utilization.Methods Based on the similarity of the short-term amplitude spectrum trend,this study proposes a frequency-domain compression method.A compression framework is designed,which first maps the amplitude spectrum into grayscale images,compresses them with a still image compression method,and then adaptively encodes the maximum amplitude and part of the initial phase for each time window to achieve the final compression.Results The comparison between the original signal and the recovered signal shows that when the time-frequency similarity is 90%,the average compression ratio of our method is 9.85%in the case of a single interaction point.The subjective score for similarity was found to be high,with an average of 87.85.Conclusions Our method can be used for offline compression of vibrotactile data.For multi-interaction points in space,the trend similarity grayscale image can be reused,and the compression ratio is further reduced.展开更多
Establishing the relationship between vibrotactile parameters and perceived intensity(PI)is of great significance in the regulation of desired sensations,which contribute to haptic interfaces in practical applications...Establishing the relationship between vibrotactile parameters and perceived intensity(PI)is of great significance in the regulation of desired sensations,which contribute to haptic interfaces in practical applications.Coin eccentric rotating mass(ERM)motors are routinely utilized due to their lightweight design and efficient ability to evoke strong tactile sensations.By adjusting input voltages,ERMs can yield different stimuli,but the effects of their physical properties on PI remain unclear.Thus,we developed the physical model of the ERM-skin system and optimized the parameters affecting PI.Moreover,the relationship between stimulus and perception was derived based on Fechner's law.Three experiments were conducted on fifteen subjects(ten males and five females,aged 24.40±2.87 years)to identify the vibration parameters and corresponding PI to verify the proposed PI model.ERMs in this study were attached to phantom skin/forearm with slim adhesive tape to minimize the interference.Experiment 1 performed vibration calibration with ERM attached to the skin phantom to simulate the actual configuration.Then,the relative and absolute PI of subjects on specific stimuli were acquired in Experiments 2 and 3.The fitting reliability of the proposed PI model was evaluated on fifteen subjects with R^(2) of 0.73±0.07 and root mean squared error(RMSE)of 1.35±0.28.Overall,the proposed PI model established the quantitative relationship between stimulus parameters(vibration parameters and physical parameters)and subjective PI,which provided theoretical support for ERM optimization and vibrotactile modulation.展开更多
基金Supported by the Icelandic Technological Development Fund(Project No.1910271).
文摘Background Vibrotactile feedback systems are widely used in assistive technology,wearable devices,and virtual environments to deliver precise tactile information.The timing of interstimulus intervals(ISIs)plays a critical role in determining how accurately users perceive and interpret vibrotactile patterns.The optimal use of ISIs can increase the effectiveness of these systems,improve user interaction,and enable reliable,intuitive feedback in diverse applications.We examined how different interstimulus intervals ISIs impact the accuracy of vibrotactile pattern recognition.Methods Participants wore a forearm-mounted device with six voice coil actuators arranged in a 3×2 grid,delivering Braille-based vibrotactile patterns sequentially at ISIs ranging from 10 to 2500 ms.Eight participants performed identification tasks involving Icelandic Braille patterns categorized as either short(2-3 actuators)or long(4-5 actuators).A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to assess the effects of ISI,pattern type,and practice(across two testing blocks)on pattern recognition accuracy.Results For short patterns,accuracy was highest(92%-98%)at ISIs of 50-700 ms,with peak performance at 300 ms.For long patterns,accuracy reached 86%-94%at ISIs of 100-500 ms,peaking at 400 ms.Participants were more accurate with short patterns,and performance improved significantly over time for both short and long patterns,highlighting the importance of training for vibrotactile pattern recognition.Conclusions These results underscore the importance of careful selection of ISIs in vibrotactile feedback systems for accurate pattern identification.The findings provide valuable insights for conveying tactile information using wearable devices,contributing to better tactile feedback and performance in applications requiring precise vibrotactile information delivery.
基金support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51805218)Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No.BK20170552)China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project (No.2018M632239).
文摘Pacinian corpuscle is a tactile receptor that responds to high-frequency(20-1000 Hz)vibration and has high-pass filtering and mechanical signal amplification functions.It is the main receptor of vibration tactility closely related to fine touch sensation,which is the ability to perceive and localize objects’shape,texture,and size.Currently,it is still difficult to measure and calculate the friction generated by robots grasping objects.The resolution of touch and vibration sensors cannot satisfy the demand for understanding tribological behavior.The simulation of Pacinian corpuscles’structure and replication of its key functions will bring richer touch information to robots.In this review article,the structure and functions of Pacinian corpuscles are summarized from the internal structure of a single Pacinian corpuscle and the spatial distribution of multiple Pacinian corpuscles.Then,theoretical models and research on the bionics design of Pacinian corpuscles are introduced based on the three reception processes of Pacinian corpuscles:mechanical transmission,electromechanical transduction,and neural excitation.Finally,the bottlenecks of current research on the simulation of Pacinian corpuscles are summarized,followed by the proposal of research ideas on the simulation of Pacinian corpuscles.
基金The National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.61473088)Six Talent Peaks Projects in Jiangsu Province
文摘To improve the sense of reality on perception, an improved algorithm of 3D shape haptic rendering is put forward based on a finger mounted vibrotactile device. The principle is that the interactive information and the shape information are conveyed to users when they touch virtual objects at mobile terminals by attaching the vibrotactile feedback on a fingertip. The extraction of shape characteristics, the interactive information and the mapping of shape in formation of vibration stimulation are key parts of the proposed algorithm to realize the real tactile rendering. The contact status of the interaction process, the height information and local gradient of the touch point are regarded as shape information and used to control the vibration intension, rhythm and distribution of the vibrators. With different contact status and shape information, the vibration pattern can be adjusted in time to imitate the outlines of virtual objects. Finally, the effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by shape perception experiments. The results show that the improved algorithm is effective for 3D shape haptic rendering.
文摘Background In the past few years,augmented reality(AR)has rapidly advanced and has been applied in different fields.One of the successful AR applications is the immersive and interactive serious games,which can be used for education and learning purposes.Methods In this project,a prototype of an AR serious game is developed and demonstrated.Gamers utilize a head-mounted device and a vibrotactile feedback jacket to explore and interact with the AR serious game.Fourteen vibration actuators are embedded in the vibrotactile feedback jacket to generate immersive AR experience.These vibration actuators are triggered in accordance with the designed game scripts.Various vibration patterns and intensity levels are synthesized in different game scenes.This article presents the details of the entire software development of the AR serious game,including game scripts,game scenes with AR effects design,signal processing flow,behavior design,and communication configuration.Graphics computations are processed using the graphics processing unit in the system.Results/Conclusions The performance of the AR serious game prototype is evaluated and analyzed.The computation loads and resource utilization of normal game scenes and heavy computation scenes are compared.With 14 vibration actuators placed at different body positions,various vibration patterns and intensity levels can be generated by the vibrotactile feedback jacket,providing different real-world feedback.The prototype of this AR serious game can be valuable in building large-scale AR or virtual reality educational and entertainment games.Possible future improvements of the proposed prototype are also discussed in this article.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.52175023,52227808)。
文摘Asynchronous brain-computer interfaces(aBCIs)using brain switches have demonstrated significant reliability and usability in discriminating a user's control intention and resting state.However,there is a rare research demonstration of the BCI brain switch independent of visual feedback;the drawback of relying on visual channels might be disadvantageous in exploring the surrounding environment and inappropriate for some target users with severe disability.In this study,we proposed a vibrotactile-based brain switch using a virtual physical model to integrate the weak intention information to address the challenge without visual feedback.Specifically,two vibrators were worn on the left and right ankles to convey the system's swing direction to the subject,and the subject completed the periodic motor imagery task according to the vibrotactile feedback direction until the intention information was integrated enough to trigger the brain switch.A control experiment with visual feedback and vibrotactile feedback was conducted,respectively.The results showed that the triggering time for visual feedback was 54±67 s,the triggering time for vibration feedback was 53±50 s,and the false triggering rate(or false positive rate,FPR)was 1.3±1.5 and 1.1±1.4 FP/h,respectively.These results show that the proposed brain switch framework based on virtual physical systems does not need to rely on the visual pathway and can provide good reliability and triggering speed.It sheds light on developing asynchronous visual independent brain-computer interface systems.
基金The Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province(No.BK2012560)the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China(No.20130092110060)
文摘To guide pedestrians to navigate in a strange city and reduce the cognitive overload suffered when walking, thermal change direction, vibration stimulation direction, intensity variation and body location are employed to construct four-parameter compound tactons.They are mapped to four different types of navigation message： route attribute, intersection type, distance and heading direction. One psychological experiment was conducted. The derived confusion matrices were used to investigate recognition rates and information transfer for compound tactons,and non-parameter tests were employed to analyze the effect of each parameter on the number of correct responses.Experimental results show that the overall identification rate for four-parameter tactons is 88.72% by using different tactile parameters,and 19.64 icons can be identified reliably in all 32 tactile icons according to the information transfer value. Thermal changes can be an effective supplement to vibrotactile icons. This suggests that compound tactons will be a promising method of conveying complex information when navigating in a virtual or real urban environment.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(52175493)the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2020YFB2104400).
文摘An increasing number of studies have focused on providing rich tactile feedback in virtual reality interactive scenarios.In this study,we addressed a tapping scenario in virtual reality by designing MatStick,a solution capable of offering diverse tapping sensations.MatStick utilizes a soft physical base to provide force feedback and modulates the instantaneous vibration of the base using a voice coil motor,thereby altering the perception of the base material.We conducted two psychophysical experiments and a subjective evaluation to assess the capabilities of MatStick.The results demonstrate that MatStick can deliver rich tapping sensations.Although users may find it challenging to directly correlate the tapping sensation with the actual physical material based solely on tactile feedback,in immersive scenarios combined with visual and auditory cues,MatStick significantly enhances the user's interaction experience.
基金Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China(61631010)。
文摘Background Adequate data collection can enhance the realism of online rendering or offline playback of haptic surface textures.A parallel challenge is to reduce communication delays and improve storage space utilization.Methods Based on the similarity of the short-term amplitude spectrum trend,this study proposes a frequency-domain compression method.A compression framework is designed,which first maps the amplitude spectrum into grayscale images,compresses them with a still image compression method,and then adaptively encodes the maximum amplitude and part of the initial phase for each time window to achieve the final compression.Results The comparison between the original signal and the recovered signal shows that when the time-frequency similarity is 90%,the average compression ratio of our method is 9.85%in the case of a single interaction point.The subjective score for similarity was found to be high,with an average of 87.85.Conclusions Our method can be used for offline compression of vibrotactile data.For multi-interaction points in space,the trend similarity grayscale image can be reused,and the compression ratio is further reduced.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.91948302,52175021,52375021)the Key Research and Development Program of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province(Grant No.2023YFS0135).
文摘Establishing the relationship between vibrotactile parameters and perceived intensity(PI)is of great significance in the regulation of desired sensations,which contribute to haptic interfaces in practical applications.Coin eccentric rotating mass(ERM)motors are routinely utilized due to their lightweight design and efficient ability to evoke strong tactile sensations.By adjusting input voltages,ERMs can yield different stimuli,but the effects of their physical properties on PI remain unclear.Thus,we developed the physical model of the ERM-skin system and optimized the parameters affecting PI.Moreover,the relationship between stimulus and perception was derived based on Fechner's law.Three experiments were conducted on fifteen subjects(ten males and five females,aged 24.40±2.87 years)to identify the vibration parameters and corresponding PI to verify the proposed PI model.ERMs in this study were attached to phantom skin/forearm with slim adhesive tape to minimize the interference.Experiment 1 performed vibration calibration with ERM attached to the skin phantom to simulate the actual configuration.Then,the relative and absolute PI of subjects on specific stimuli were acquired in Experiments 2 and 3.The fitting reliability of the proposed PI model was evaluated on fifteen subjects with R^(2) of 0.73±0.07 and root mean squared error(RMSE)of 1.35±0.28.Overall,the proposed PI model established the quantitative relationship between stimulus parameters(vibration parameters and physical parameters)and subjective PI,which provided theoretical support for ERM optimization and vibrotactile modulation.
