Tactile Display using gSuction Pressure Stimulationh

Principle

This research is based on our discovery that ghuman can not discriminate Suction from Compression.h As shown in the figure, we feel pushed sensation by suction pressure.

suction_pressure

 

This tactile illusion indicates that tactile mechanoreceptors detect not stress or strain tensor directly, but Strain energy. To confirm this hypothesis, we analyzed the strain energy distributions under the skin surface using Finite Element Method. The distributions seem different between two cases, as shown in the upper figure. However, when we focus on the mechanoreceptor level (drawn with red lines), the distributions are similar each other (lower figure). We suppose this is the reason why the human can not discriminate suction from compression.

fem_comp
fem_graph

Advantages

One of the advantages of the Suction Pressure Stimulation is that we can give stable stimulation to the skin.
Because c
1) Little interference between each stimulator occurs, since the skin deformation only occurs within a suction hole.
2) Skin surface is strongly constrained on the display surface by suction pressure even when the intense stimulus was given.

Main actuators (air valves and regulators) can be set away from the display part by connecting them with thin air tubes. That is, suction pressure tactile display only requires small holes at the contact point. The display is easy to fabricate lightly and mountable anywhere.

Settings (at World HAPTICS 2005)

Setting

 

Setting_Up

Yasutoshi Makino: makino(at)sdm.keio.ac.jp