Haptic Harness

description

The haptic harness grew out of an investigation into movement instruction. Our primary question was whether a person could learn to move entirely through haptic communication, or vibrations against the skin. We developed this as a conceptual project, and set ourselves the task of building a flexible harness that would easily place up to 16 haptic buzzers on any part of the body, in order the test the potential of our interface. Our final deliverable included:

• Arduino-based control module
• Custom built 4 thumbstick controller
• 4 pigtails, each with 4 vibrating motors
• Extendable cable assembly
• A set of velcro straps to secure the motors
• A modified hockey chest protector to support the electronics
• Software to control the interface
• Software for demonstration of the concept

Using this equipment, we were able to develop a rudiementary haptic vocabulary that allowed a person holding the controller to send movement instructions to the person wearing the harness. We demonstrated this capability using a virtual deck of cards showing semaphore positions, which the operator was able to use to guide the test subject into position, with the subject unaware of the chosen card. Not all of the proposed gestural interface was immediately succesful, but we demonstrated a common level of latent reaction to the vibrations that allowed for communication to occur.