WAVES: A Wearable Asymmetric Vibration Excitation System for Presenting Three-Dimensional Translation and Rotation Cues

WAVES, a Wearable Asymmetric Vibration Excitation System, is a novel wearable haptic device for presenting three dimensions of translation and rotation guidance cues. In contrast to traditional vibration feedback, which usually requires that users learn to interpret a binary cue, asymmetric vibrations have been shown to induce a pulling sensation in a desired direction. When attached to the fingers, a single voicecoil actuator presents a translation guidance cue and a pair of voicecoil actuators presents a rotation guidance cue. The directionality of mechanoreceptors in the skin led to our choice of the location and orientation of the actuators in order to elicit very strong sensations in certain directions. For example, users distinguished a left cue versus a right cue 94.5% of the time. When presented with one of six possible direction cues, users on average correctly identified the direction of translation cues 86.1% of the time and rotation cues 69.0% of the time.