Haptic communication system using cutaneous actuators for simulation of continuous human touch
摘要
說明書
The acoustic structure of speech is characterized by multiple peaks in the frequency spectrum (i.e., formants) generated by resonances in the vocal tract. These formants are the one of the primary information-carrying features of speech for many phonemes, especially vowels. In frequency decomposition algorithms, adjacent frequency bands are mapped to spatially adjacent cutaneous actuators on the skin. In light of the poor spatial resolution and poor intensity discriminability of the skin, it is challenging for a receiving user to identify the location of the cutaneous actuators with the greatest intensity, especially when adjacent actuators are also activated due to the typically broad shoulders of the formant peaks in the spectrum. Embodiments identify frequencies with local maxima and the corresponding cutaneous actuators are activated while other cutaneous actuators are not activated. In this way a clearer unique haptic signature is presented for each unique formant pattern by the activation of the cutaneous actuators. This approach can be used alone or in a hybrid system in which vowels (i.e., prominent formant structure) and/or non-vowels are encoded.
