A Hand-Held Device Presenting Haptic Directional Cues For The Visually Impaired

Shuhao Dong*, Justin Gallagher, Andrew Jackson, Martin Levesley

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Haptic information is essential in everyday activities, especially for visually impaired people in terms of real-world navigation. Since human haptic sensory processing is nonlinear, asymmetric vibrations have been widely studied to create a pulling sensation for the delivery of directional haptic cues. However, the design of an input control signal that generates asymmetric vibrations has not yet been parameterised. In particular, it is unclear how to quantify the asymmetry of the output vibrations to create a better pulling sensation. To better understand the design of an input control signal that generates haptic directional cues, we evaluated the effect of the pulling sensations corresponding to the three adjustable parameters (i.e., delay time, ramp-down step length, and cut-off voltage) in a commonly applied step-ramp input signal. The results of a displacement measurement and a psychophysical experiment demonstrate that when the quantified asymmetry ratio is in a range of 0.3430–0.3508 with an optimised cut-off voltage for our hand-held device, the haptic directional cues are better perceived by participants. Additionally, the results also showed a superior performance in haptic delivery by shear forces than normal forces.
Original languageEnglish
Article number8415
Number of pages17
JournalSensors
Volume23
Issue number20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Oct 2023

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