Haptic Vest Research Articles

EEG correlates to perceived urgency elicited by vibration stimulation of the upper body

Conveying information effectively while minimizing user distraction is critical to human–computer interaction. As the proliferation of audio–visual communication pushes human information processing capabilities to the limit, researchers are turning their attention to haptic interfaces. Haptic feedback has the potential to create a desirable sense of urgency that allows users to selectively focus on events/tasks or process presented information with minimal distraction or annoyance. There is a growing interest in understanding the neural mechanisms associated with haptic stimulation. In this study, we aim to investigate the EEG correlates associated with the perceived urgency elicited by vibration stimuli on the upper body using a haptic vest. A total of 31 participants enrolled in this experiment and were exposed to three conditions: no vibration pattern (NVP), urgent vibration pattern (UVP), and very urgent vibration pattern (VUVP). Through self-reporting, participants confirmed that the vibration patterns elicited significantly different levels of perceived urgency (Friedman test, Holm–Bonferroni correction, p < 0.01). Furthermore, neural analysis revealed that the power spectral density of the delta, theta, and alpha frequency bands in the middle central area (C1, Cz, and C2) significantly increased for the UVP and VUVP conditions as compared to the NVP condition (One-way ANOVA test, Holm–Bonferroni correction, p < 0.01). While the perceptual experience of haptic-induced urgency is well studied with self-reporting and behavioral evidence, this is the first effort to evaluate the neural correlates to haptic-induced urgency using EEG. Further research is warranted to identify unique correlates to the cognitive processes associated with urgency from sensory feedback correlates.

Concept Design of a Smart Haptic Suit for a Biological Signal Recognition and Feedback to Human Body Movements

The ultimate purpose of monitoring bio-signals in the form of individually tailored clothing is to monitor an unconstrained bio-signals during the wearer's physiological activities and provide freedom of movement, thereby eliminating inconvenience in workspace of HMI (Human-Machine Interaction) or HRI (Human-Robot Interaction), and healthcare life. In the form of smart clothing for human collaboration industries or everyday life, there is a need to provide new sensitive and high accurate functions to the wearer while also faithfully performing the functions of existing clothing. In this respect, auxetic pattern-based sensors and actuators can be said to be one of the most promising candidates to be combined with smart wearable technology. There is an emerging need to research the concepts of these new sensors and actuators and present a paradigm for clothing research on innovative smart haptic suits. Accordingly, there is a need for a concept of smart haptic system suitable to meet the conditions of sensors and actuators with improved sensitivity, conductivity, and receptivity that can have characteristics such as microporosity, flexibility, and large surface area of nano and micro web structures. When measuring a bio-signal sensing and motion feedback using an electro-active structural pattern, the signal waveform can be confirmed to have a similar signal waveform to the measured signal through direct visual evaluation, and muscle signals for each body part can be measured using a commercialized sensor. The same signal can be confirmed. Through Pearson's correlation analysis using statistical analysis techniques, signal data between nano and micro web structure-based respiration sensors and existing respiration sensors showed significant correlation with each other, indicating respiration obtained from nano and micro web-based sensors. A theoretical model which predicts the actuation stroke of the system based on the material properties of the auxetic SMM (Shape Memory Material) and bias components as well as the geometry of the metamaterial system was developed.

Anatomy of a Hug in Virtual Reality

Over time, there has been an increase in research on how to improve emotional state rehabilitation processes, and it is notable that the use of technology has had a positive result, with increasing accuracy. Serious Games (SG) for Virtual Reality (VR) are extremely beneficial in this regard, and the use of haptic devices as a tool for researchers and medical teams is increasing in popularity. The current study aims to conduct an initial investigation into the use of a haptic vest to see if haptic touch can aid in emotional conditioning, which may result in improved disease and phobia rehabilitation, and whether different interactions with virtual scenarios, such as a virtual hug, can increase immersiveness. The investigation seeks to discover the most effective ways to convey a virtual to physical hug using the haptic device. Previous research has revealed a high level of participant interest, as well as increased immersion in SGs realism, leading to additional research and implementation.

Extension of an Existing VR Memory Training with Haptic Impressions due to a Haptic Vest

Abstract Cognitive performance is an important aspect of life. Not only does thinking enable us to act, there is also an interaction between cognitive performance and mental health. It is therefore increasingly important to train and practice one’s cognitive abilities and benefit from brain plasticity. According to Vester’s model of learning types visual, auditiv and haptic impression are imporant for learning. An existing memory training application, which transfers the concept of the game Pairs with personal memories into virtual reality (VR), has now been supplemented with a haptic impression. The original application already establishes the visual and auditory perception channels. With new haptic hardware constantly appearing on the market, the Tactsuit X40 haptic vest from bhaptics has now made it possible to include a third perceptual channel with a wide variation of haptic sensations on various parts of the upper body. Each playing card is associated with an individual image, a piece of music and a vibration pattern. All of which are designed to help the user remember the position of the card. Each of these aspects can be freely enabled and disabled. The result of this work is an application which aims to find if and how strongly haptic impressions influence memory performance. By taking more types of learning into account, we hope to achieve a better memory training. A study has been designed to evaluate the specific aspects of the application and is currently being carried out. In addition to the self-generated haptic patterns, it is also possible to generate haptic impulses based on audio sources. These could possibly provide further support in this application.

ROV teleoperation via human body motion mapping: Design and experiment

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) are widely used in subsea engineering such as inspection, construction and maintenance of underwater facilities. Currently, ROV controls are primarily based on control kiosks with the camera display and joystick control devices on a surface vessel. It sets a high barrier for ROV teleoperation and results in prolonged personnel on board (POB) time. This paper proposes a human body motion and hand gesture control method in Virtual Reality (VR) for ROV teleoperation in navigation and stabilization tasks. Specifically, a whole-body haptic suit converts ROV sensor data of hydrodynamic forces into haptic feedback of different magnitudes, then body-carried sensors capture and model human body motions and map them into the gesture controls of a remote ROV. As a result, a simulated haptomotor loop is accomplished, facilitating automatic and spontaneous motor controls of ROV in an intuitive way. A human subject experiment (N = 30) was performed to test the effectiveness of the proposed ROV control method. The result shows that with the proposed method, the navigation and stabilization control precision is improved, along with reduced mental load and perceived benefits. The findings will inspire the design of novel ROV teleoperation systems that would lower the professional barrier and increase broader participation in the subsea engineering of tomorrow.

Scalable Fluidic Matrix Circuits for Controlling Large Arrays of Individually Addressable Actuators

A fundamental challenge of pneumatically powered soft robotic devices is the scalability of fluidic control systems to address each actuated degree of freedom, as the required electromechanical valves are bulky and expensive. Previous solutions have compromised the reprogrammability and/or the bandwidth of the fluidic system. This article describes and models a fluidic subsystem, a fluidic matrix circuit (FMC), that enables the independent control of many () actuators using a limited number () of electromechanical valves. The fundamental unit, a fluidic logic module (FLM), generates a bidirectional pressure signal (vacuum or positive pressure) based on the state of the mass flow through it. Thus and array of pneumatic actuators can be addressed individually using an array of FLMs integrated into a matrix (i.e., an FMC), with electromechanical valves to switch the mass flow through each row and column of the matrix. The resulting refresh rates are an order of magnitude faster than previous approaches. This concept with a prototype FMC able to control 25 actuators using 10 electromechanical valves for applications including a fluidic shape display and a wearable haptic vest is demonstrated. This approach could enable more complex and sophisticated soft robotic devices with scalable control hardware.

Improving virtual reality navigation tasks using a haptic vest and upper body tracking

Haptic feedback is an important component of immersive virtual reality (VR) applications that is often suggested to complement visual information through the sense of touch. This paper investigates the use of a haptic vest in navigation tasks. The haptic vest produces a repulsive vibrotactile feedback from nearby static virtual obstacles that augments the user spatial awareness. The tasks require the user to perform complex movements in a 3D cluttered virtual environment, like avoiding obstacles while walking backwards and pulling a virtual object. The experimental setup consists of a room-scale environment. Our approach is the first study where a haptic vest is tracked in real time using a motion capture device so that proximity-based haptic feedback can be conveyed according to the actual movement of the upper body of the user.User study experiments have been conducted with and without haptic feedback in virtual environments involving both normal and limited visibility conditions. A quantitative evaluation was carried out by measuring task completion time and error (collision) rate. Multiple haptic rendering techniques have also been tested. Results show that under limited visibility conditions proximity-based haptic feedback generated by a wearable haptic vest can significantly reduce the number of collisions with obstacles in the virtual environment.

Pneumatic and acoustic suit: multimodal haptic suit for enhanced virtual reality simulation

A haptic device provides users with physical feedback to enhance their experience in virtual reality (VR). We developed a multimodal haptic suit, called as Pneumatic and Acoustic (PA) suit, which exhibits high-resolution haptic feedback, and applies high pressure and realistic vibration to a user. The PA suit artificially simulates the sensation of brief and strong collisions such as the impact of an explosion, ball, or fist. The pneumatic actuators, consisting of 40 air bladders, are designed as bellows-type pneumatic devices for vertical inflation. The air bladders are placed on the chest at an equal interval distance of 30 mm for high-resolution feedback. The acoustic actuators use an effective sound signal of a collision similar to realistic vibrations. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of our multimodal haptic suit in improving VR experience of users. The recognition tests clearly show that participants distinguish between the haptic patterns and position of collided virtual objects with the suit. The user study involving a collision of a ball shows that the PA suit transmits the approximate pressure of a real ball collision with artificial haptic feedback. Our receiving ball and explosion VR simulations confirm that the PA suit improves a VR experience depending on the types of actuators and VR contents. The results prove that the PA suit creates distinguishable haptic patterns for guiding a task and improves the VR experience of users with powerful and multimodal haptic feedback hence providing high-quality VR simulation.

Virtual Reality Haptic Device for Mental Illness Treatment

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that alters mental functioning and can cause hallucinations, mental disorientation, and a variety of other symptoms, which results in a separation of schizophrenics from society. Despite the fact that the condition has been known about for a long time, there is still an urgent need for research and testing to develop better therapies.Virtual reality (VR) has had interesting outcomes when used to treat illnesses, and it is gradually emerging as a viable technical choice for the healthcare sector due to its immersion, which offers better and more intense user experiences. Once linked to a serious game, it can introduce the user to a number of situations that, when combined with medical assistance, aid in their rehabilitation and treatment.The use of haptic devices enhances VR immersion by enabling users to comprehend virtual environments with greater nuance, which increases their level of believing in the new environment they are in. When used in conjunction with VR, it can improve the efficacy of the treatment, making its use viable for the treatment of psychic diseases.The goal of this research is to develop haptic vest interactions using a three-dimensional virtual testing scenario to support and improve the use of VR for rehabilitation and therapy for schizophrenia. The established functionalities can be applied to a further serious game with the same focus.

Sensory augmentation for subsea robot teleoperation

Subsea construction operations heavily rely on remotely operated vehicles (ROV). Due to the dynamics of the subsea environment such as uncertain turbulences, affected visibility and interference with subsea ecosystems, control of subsea ROV is challenging for human operators, especially for construction professionals who have never been exposed to such an environment. The traditional visual feedback method can hardly provide direct and intuitive cues about workplace uncertainties, especially the flow conditions, which makes the ROV operation a work with a high mental load and high training barrier. To augment human sensation of the ROV and workplace status, this research proposes a hierarchical intuitive control method based on Virtual Reality (VR) and haptic simulators. A distributed sensor system that allows a flexible add-on sensor package for subsea environmental data collection is applied to the ROVs to collect hydrodynamic data of subsea workplaces. Then, a Digital Twins (DT) module receives and integrates all data to drive a simulation approach for data augmentation. Last, multi-level sensory feedback methods, including far-field augmented 3D visual feedback, near-field haptic suit tactile feedback, and micro-field haptic suit turbulence feedback are generated and sent to human operators through haptic devices. Compared to previous studies, this system reconstructs the realistic subsea environment with detailed hydrodynamic features in VR digital twin. Whole-body level haptic feedback is realized based on hydrodynamic information. This proposed system ensures an immersive awareness of the proximity conditions and predictions of potential damage and status changes during ROV operations. As a result, a less-trained operator can pilot the ROV based on intuition to maximize the performance and avoid potential mistakes.

AB1528-HPR FULL BODY HAPTIC BODYSUIT - AN INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE THE RANGE AND SPEED OF MOTION IN PATIENTS WITH AXIAL SPONDYLOARTHRITIS (axSpA) - PRELIMINARY RESULTS

BackgroundMovement of the spine is restricted in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) [1]. Spine function is usually assessed by the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Metrology Index (BASMI), which is based on a limited set of defined motions that are measured semiquantitatively in the spatial dimension but not in the temporal dimension. Sensor-based measurement of spine function in axSpA patients is in its infancy but may provide a deeper and more detailed understanding of the impact of axSpA on the impairment of spine function [2,3]. In theory, unbiased full body assessment of spine motion may open a new dimension in function analysis in axSpA.ObjectivesTo test if a of a full-body based haptic capturing of spine motion is technically feasible and can pick up the measurements of BASMI items 1-5. Furthermore, we aimed to investigate whether such measurements are accurate and reproducible comparing to BASMI scores done by rheumatologists. Lastly, we sought to measure velocity of spine movements to allow spatiotemporal analysis of motion.MethodsFor full-body haptic assessment of spine motion a full-body haptic suit (Teslasuit; VR Electronics Ltd, London) was used that consists of a smart textile two-piece bodysuit that not only captures range and speed of motion but also provides biometric and haptic feedback. This device is currently tested in clinical trials (https://teslasuit.io/rehabilitation/) but has not been tested in rheumatic diseases such as axSpA [4]. Since there is no pre-defined technical solution for measuring BASMI, we used the integrated inertial measurement units (IMUs) of the suit (Figure 1a). The suit is recording the position and rotations of its IMUs and is transforming the raw data to position coordinates and joint angle of the bones. We implemented an algorithm that is accessing the sensor data and is calculating the BASMI measurements as well as velocity. Assessment were done in healthy individuals. BASMI was obtained 3 times by teslasuit followed by standard BASMI measurement by 2 independent rheumatologists. In addition, rotational movements with their maximum torso speed to evaluate angular velocity were performed (Figure 1b). Measurements were compared using absolute values and relative standard deviation (which is the standard deviation normalized by the mean).ResultsFive healthy individuals (all males, age: 27.6 ± 1.8 years, height: 178 ± 5 cm; weight 70.0 ± 8.0 kg) were assessed. Teslasuit measurements were well tolerated. Technically, we were able to calculate BASMI item 3 and 5, finger-to-floor distance and the velocity of the spine movement using the position data of hand, talus and upper back sensors (Figure 1a, b). Due to absence of sensors at the head and the required back areas, BASMI 1, 2, 4 could only partially be captured and require further programming, which is currently performed. Only marginal differences were detected regarding the relative standard deviations of measurements between teslasuit and rheumatologists (BASMI 3: rheumatologists 8,5%: suit 10%; BASMI 5: rheumatologists 5,4%: suit 4,9%) (Figure 1c). The speed of spinal motion could be measured with an average angular velocity of 172.2 degrees/sec over the entire rotation motion and an average maximum angular velocity of 417.2 degrees/sec.ConclusionThis study shows that full-body haptic-suits can capture spinal motion including parts of the BASMI score. In addition, they allow to measure the speed of spinal movement, which might be an important and so far unrecognized factor to test the impact of axSpA on spinal function. Based on these results, full-body haptic-suits will be tested in axSpA patients in the future. Furthermore, technical solutions are currently developed to implement the remaining BASMI scores into the suit as well as connections from the suit to virtual reality devices for patients and doctors.

Guidelines for evaluating wearables’ quality of experience in a mulsemedia context

Quality of Experience (QoE) is inextricably linked to the user experience of multimedia computing and, although QoE has been explored in relation to other types of multimedia devices, thus far its applicability to wearables has remained largely ignored. Given the proliferation of wearable devices and their growing use to augment and complement the multimedia user experience, the need for a set of QoE guidelines becomes imperative. This study meets that need and puts forward a set of guidelines tailored exclusively towards wearables’ QoE. Accordingly, an extensive experimental investigation has been undertaken to see how wearables impact users’ QoE in multiple sensorial media (mulsemedia) context. Based on the exploratory study, the findings have shown that the haptic vest (KOR-FX) enhanced user QoE to a certain extent. In terms of adoption, participants reported they would generally incorporate the heart rate (HR) monitor wristband (Mio Go) into their daily lives as opposed to the haptic vest. Other findings revealed that human factors play a part in user’s attitudes towards wearables and predominantly age was the major influencing factor. Moreover, the participants’ HR varied throughout the experiments, suggesting an enhanced level of engagement whilst viewing the multimedia video clips. Furthermore, the results suggest that there is a potential future for wearables, if the QoE is a positive one and if the design of such devices are appealing as well as unobtrusive.

Upper-body haptic system for snake robot teleoperation in pipelines

Snake robots have shown a great potential for operations in confined workplaces that are less accessible or dangerous to human workers, such as the in-pipe inspection. However, the snake robot teleoperation remains a nontrivial task due to the unique locomotion mechanism (e.g., helical motion) and the constraints of the workplaces including the low visibility and indistinguishable features. Most snake robot feedback systems are based on the live camera view only. It is hard for the human operator to develop a correct spatial understanding of the remote workplace, leading to problems such as disorientation and motion sickness in snake robot teleoperation. This study designs and evaluates an innovative haptic assistant system for snake robot teleoperation in the in-pipe inspection. An upper-body haptic suit with 40 vibrators on both the front and back sides of the human operator was developed to generate haptic feedback corresponding to the bottom and up sides of the snake robot, transferring the egocentric sensation of the snake robot to the human operator. A human-subject experiment (n = 31) was performed to evaluate the efficacy of the developed system. The results indicate that the proposed haptic assistant system outperformed other feedback systems in terms of both task performance and subjective workload and motion sickness evaluations. It inspires new control and feedback designs for the future snake robot in industrial operations.

Estimation of Torso Vibrotactile Thresholds Using Eccentric Rotating Mass Motors.

The characterization of vibrotactile perception is crucial to accurately configure haptic devices and create appropriate stimuli for improving user performance in human-machine interaction systems. This article presents a study aiming to determine the absolute and differential vibrotactile thresholds in different areas of the torso to develop reliable haptic patterns to be displayed using a haptic vest. In the 'absolute threshold' experiment, we measure the minimum detectable vibration using a forced-choice task. Furthermore, in the 'differential threshold' experiment, we measure the minimum frequency change needed for users to discriminate two successive vibrotactile stimuli using a vibration matching task. The first experiment does not show differences between absolute thresholds, opening up the possibility of setting a unique minimal vibration for creating haptic patterns. Similarly, the second experiment does not show differences between differential thresholds. Moreover, as these thresholds follow Weber's law, it is viable to estimate any upper or lower differential threshold for any reference stimulus using a K-value. These results are a first step for creating vibrotactile patterns over the torso with the employed eccentric rotating mass motors. Moreover, the whole study provides a method to obtain these psychophysical values since the usage of different motors can change these results.

HARVEST: High-Resolution Haptic Vest and Fingertip Sensing Glove That Transfers Tactile Sensation of Fingers to the Back

Human fingertips are densely populated with tactile receptors and are hence incredibly sensitive. However, wearing gloves on the fingers drastically reduces the tactile information available to the fingertips, such as the texture and shape of the object, and makes it difficult to perform dexterous work. As a solution, in this study, we developed a high-resolution haptic vest that transfers the tactile sensation of the fingertips to the back. The haptic vest contains 80 voice-coil type vibrators which are located at each of the two discrimination thresholds on the back and can be driven independently. The tactile sensation of the fingertips is transferred to the back using the developed haptic vest in combination with a sensing glove that can detect the pressure distribution on the finger skin at up to 100 points. Different experiments were conducted to validate the performance of the proposed haptic vest and sensing gloves. The use of the haptic vest and the sensing glove enabled the user to perceive the shape of a planar object more accurately when compared to the case where the user wore only the glove.

DEAR-MULSEMEDIA: Dataset for emotion analysis and recognition in response to multiple sensorial media

Traditionally, emotion recognition is performed in response to stimuli that engage either one (vision: image or hearing: audio) or two (vision and hearing: video) human senses. An immersive environment can be generated by engaging more than two human senses while interacting with multimedia content and is known as MULtiple SEnsorial media (mulsemedia). This study aims to create a new dataset of multimodal physiological signals to recognize emotions in response to such content. To this end, four multimedia clips are selected and synchronized with fan, heater, olfaction dispenser, and haptic vest to augment cold air, hot air, olfaction, and haptic effects respectively. Furthermore, physiological responses including electroencephalography (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), and photoplethysmography (PPG) are observed to analyze human emotional responses while experiencing mulsemedia content. A t-test applied using arousal and valence scores show that engaging more than two human senses evokes significantly different emotions. Statistical tests on EEG, GSR, and PPG responses also show a significant difference between multimedia and mulsemedia content. Classification accuracy of 85.18% and 76.54% is achieved for valence and arousal, respectively, using K-nearest neighbor classifier and feature-level fusion strategy.

Correction to “Evaluation of Presence in Virtual Environments: Haptic Vest and User’s Haptic Skills”

In the above article [1] , the affiliation of all authors should read “Centre for Automation and Robotics (UPM-CSIC), Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, 28006 Madrid, Spain.”

A Design Study for the Haptic Vest as a Navigation System

Along with the arrival of the information age, people have started to pay attention to user experience design based on the human sensory organs. Instead of traditional user experience design based on vision and hearing, the experience based on tactile feedback has gradually become the mainstream in the field of product design. With this paper, we’re discussing the designing and production of the haptic vest, originating in our development of the haptic navigation system. We aim to actualize “symbolization” or “implication” of the haptic information. Haptic vest is a design of conveying electronic information using tactile feedback, with 60 actuators. Through these actuators, haptic vest provides users with navigational information. Thus, the vest not only serves as the medium for the actuators, the experience of tactility here comes from the vibrations of the actuators and the information it attempts to convey.

Using Eye Tracking and Heart-Rate Activity to Examine Crossmodal Correspondences QoE in Mulsemedia

Different senses provide us with information of various levels of precision and enable us to construct a more precise representation of the world. Rich multisensory simulations are thus beneficial for comprehension, memory reinforcement, or retention of information. Crossmodal mappings refer to the systematic associations often made between different sensory modalities (e.g., high pitch is matched with angular shapes) and govern multisensory processing. A great deal of research effort has been put into exploring cross-modal correspondences in the field of cognitive science. However, the possibilities they open in the digital world have been relatively unexplored. Multiple sensorial media (mulsemedia) provides a highly immersive experience to the users and enhances their Quality of Experience (QoE) in the digital world. Thus, we consider that studying the plasticity and the effects of cross-modal correspondences in a mulsemedia setup can bring interesting insights about improving the human computer dialogue and experience. In our experiments, we exposed users to videos with certain visual dimensions (brightness, color, and shape), and we investigated whether the pairing with a cross-modal matching sound (high and low pitch) and the corresponding auto-generated vibrotactile effects (produced by a haptic vest) lead to an enhanced QoE. For this, we captured the eye gaze and the heart rate of users while experiencing mulsemedia, and we asked them to fill in a set of questions targeting their enjoyment and perception at the end of the experiment. Results showed differences in eye-gaze patterns and heart rate between the experimental and the control group, indicating changes in participants’ engagement when videos were accompanied by matching cross-modal sounds (this effect was the strongest for the video displaying angular shapes and high-pitch audio) and transitively generated cross-modal vibrotactile effects.&lt;?vsp -1pt?&gt;

Evaluation of Presence in Virtual Environments: Haptic Vest and User’s Haptic Skills

This paper presents the integration of a haptic vest with a multimodal virtual environment, consisting of video, audio, and haptic feedback, with the main objective of determining how users, who interact with the virtual environment, benefit from tactile and thermal stimuli provided by the haptic vest. Some experiments are performed using a game application of a train station after an explosion. The participants of this experiment have to move inside the environment, while receiving several stimuli to check if any improvement in presence or realism in that environment is reflected on the vest. This is done by comparing the experimental results with those similar scenarios, obtained without haptic feedback. These experiments are carried out by three groups of participants who are classified on the basis of their experience in haptics and virtual reality devices. Some differences among the groups have been found, which can be related to the levels of realism and synchronization of all the elements in the multimodal environment that fulfill the expectations and maximum satisfaction level. According to the participants in the experiment, two different levels of requirements are to be defined by the system to comply with the expectations of professional and conventional users.