IEEE Trans Haptics. 2019 Oct-Dec;12(4):428-437. doi: 10.1109/TOH.2019.2938945. Epub 2019 Sep 3.
In the context of wearable technologies, it is often important for the fingers to be unconstrained so that they can be used to explore the environment. In this paper, we explored the feasibility of presenting vibrotactile cues that represented different textures to one of three locations on the hand and forearm using a wearable device. The first experiment indicated that vibrotactile signals of varying frequency rendered by the tactile display could be encoded by participants in terms of changes along a roughness-smoothness dimension. The differential thresholds measured for vibrotactile frequency were significantly higher on the wrist as compared to the fingerpad and the distal phalanx of the index finger. In two subsequent experiments vibrotactile signals were presented by a tactile ring worn on the distal phalanx and participants evaluated real textures explored by the fingerpad and virtual textures rendered by the ring. It was found that participants could compare and rank in terms of roughness two spatially distributed inputs with reasonable accuracy. In the context of the haptic ring being developed, these findings indicated that it is feasible to display information experienced at the fingertip on a more proximal location on the hand, thus freeing the fingers for other tasks.
在可穿戴技术的背景下，手指通常需要不受限制，以便能够用于探索环境。在本文中，我们探索了使用可穿戴设备在手和前臂的三个位置之一上呈现代表不同纹理的振动触觉提示的可行性。第一个实验表明，由触觉显示器呈现的不同频率的振动触觉信号可以由参与者根据粗糙度-平滑度维度上的变化进行编码。与指腹和食指远端指节相比，在手腕上测量的振动触觉频率的差异阈值明显更高。在随后的两个实验中，通过戴在远端指节上的触觉环呈现振动触觉信号，参与者评估由指腹探索的真实纹理和由环呈现的虚拟纹理。结果发现，参与者可以根据粗糙度合理准确地比较和对两个空间分布的输入进行排序。在正在开发的触觉环的背景下，这些发现表明，在手的更靠近近端的位置上显示在指尖体验到的信息是可行的，从而使手指可以自由用于其他任务。
