Lower Extremity Lateral Skin Stretch Perception for Haptic Feedback

• Published in: IEEE transactions on haptics Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 62 - 68
• Main Authors: Chen, Daniel K. Y., Anderson, Iain A., Walker, Cameron G., Besier, Thor F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.01.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Actuators; Electronic mail; Extremities; haptic; Haptic interfaces; lateral skin stretch; Skin; tactile feedback; tangential skin displacement; Tendons; Vibrations; Tactile feedback; tangential skin displacement; lateral skin stretch
• ISSN: 1939-1412; 2329-4051
• DOI: 10.1109/TOH.2016.2516012

Tactile feedback in recent decades has allowed humans to receive information through technology beyond traditional visual and auditory senses. Lateral skin stretch has the potential to be a mode of tactile feedback, reliably enabling the perception of directional cues through the use of a single actuator. Experiments were conducted to explore sensitivity to skin stretch on nine locations on the human lower leg. Thirty-two stimuli were presented to subjects, exploring effects of displacement (from 0.2-2.0 mm) and speed (from 0.5-4.0 mm/s) on the perception of left and right directions. Higher accuracy came from stimuli having higher displacements and speeds. Three of the locations: soleus, calcaneal tendon (upper), and fibularis longus (lower) all had a mean accuracy of at least 85 percent and are suitable locations for a skin stretch tactile feedback device.