Haptic communication system using cutaneous actuators for simulation of continuous human touch
摘要
說明書
The actuator signals 1111 output by the word-haptic signal converter 1107 are transmitted to the cutaneous actuators 1104. Each actuator signal 1111 activates one of the cutaneous actuators 1104 for a duration of time (and in some embodiments, for a particular intensity, frequency, and so on). At the point when the cutaneous actuator 1104 receives its actuator signal 1104, it activates. When the same actuator signal 1111 ceases, the cutaneous actuator 1104 deactivates. Alternatively, the actuator signals 1111 are digital in that they transmit a specified duration and start time (and the other factors described above, such as frequency) for a specified cutaneous actuator 1104. This digital signal is converted by a processor or by the cutaneous actuators 1104 themselves, and subsequently the corresponding cutaneous actuator 1104 activates according to the specifications in the digital signal. A sequence of these actuator signals 1111 can generate a unique pattern that can be recognized and distinguished by a user from other sequences of actuator signals 1111. In this fashion, the phonemes of the input words 1106 may be converted into haptic sensations via the word-haptic signal converter 1107.
Note that the word-haptic signal converter 1107 may also be able to generate sequences of actuator signals 1111 for non-word input, such as punctuation, numbers, symbols, and other text elements which may be used in the language. The sequences of actuator signals for these elements may also be stored in the phoneme-haptic signal database 1110.
