Dimensional Reduction for 6D Vibrotactile Display

IEEE Trans Haptics. 2020 Jan-Mar;13(1):102-108. doi: 10.1109/TOH.2020.2966483. Epub 2020 Jan 13.

Abstract

The human hand detects high-frequency vibrations in all directions but cannot distinguish the direction, which suggests a multi-dimensional vibrotactile stimulus is haptically equivalent to some one-dimensional (1D) stimulus. In this article, we explore how a 6D vibrotactile stimulus rendered at the haptic interaction point (HIP) of a kinesthetic haptic interface, with the stylus held in a precision pen-hold grasp, is mapped to an equivalent 1D stimulus normalized by the detection threshold. We gather a large human-subjects data set in which we determine detection thresholds for 45 distinct combinations of three orthogonal forces and three orthogonal torques rendered at the HIP, at a single frequency of 108 Hz corresponding to the peak sensitivity in our prior study. Using this data set, we find a general quadratic weighting function to predict the 1D normalized stimulus for a given 6D vibrotactile stimulus. We find that including just seven (out of a possible 21) independent parameters in the symmetric weighting matrix is sufficient to capture the non-obvious coupling between forces and torques rendered at the HIP for dimensional reduction from 6D to 1D.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Feedback, Sensory*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Physical Stimulation
  • Principal Component Analysis
  • Psychophysics
  • Sensory Thresholds*
  • Touch Perception*
  • Vibration
  • Young Adult