Abstract
The Tactile Helmet is designed to augment a wearer’s senses with a long range sense of touch. Tactile specialist animals such as rats and mice are capable of rapidly acquiring detailed information about their environment from their whiskers by using task-sensitive strategies. Providing similar information about the nearby environment, in tactile form, to a human operator could prove invaluable for search and rescue operations, or for partially-sighted people. Two key aspects of the Tactile Helmet are sensory augmentation, and active sensing. A haptic display is used to provide the user with ultrasonic range information. This can be interpreted in addition to, rather than instead of, visual or auditory information. Active sensing systems "are purposive and information-seeking sensory systems, involving task specific control of the sensory apparatus" [1]. The integration of an accelerometer allows the device to actively gate the delivery of sensory information to the user, depending on their movement. Here we describe the hardware, sensory transduction and characterisation of the Tactile Helmet device, before outlining potential use cases and benefits of the system.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
References
Prescott, T.J., Diamond, M.E., Wing, A.M.: Active touch sensing. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 2989–2995 (2011)
Prescott, T., Pearson, M., Mitchinson, B., Sullivan, J.C., Pipe, A.: Whisking with robots: From rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 16, 42–50 (2009)
Bach-Y-Rita, P., Collins, C.C., Saunders, F.A., White, B., Scadden, L.: Vision Substitu-tion by Tactile Image Projection 221, 963–964 (1969), Published online: March 08, 1969, doi:10.1038/221963a0
Durette, B., Louveton, N., Alleysson, D., Hérault, J.: Visuo-auditory sensory substitution for mobility assistance: testing TheVIBE. Presented at the Workshop on Computer Vision Applications for the Visually Impaired (October 2008)
Auvray, M., Myin, E.: Perception with compensatory devices: from sensory substitution to sensorimotor extension. Cogn. Sci. 33, 1036–1058 (2009)
McGann, M.: Perceptual Modalities:Modes of Presentation or Modes of Interaction? Journal of Consciousness Studies 17, 72–94 (2010)
Kärcher, S.M., Fenzlaff, S., Hartmann, D., Nagel, S.K., König, P.: Sensory augmentation for the blind. Front Hum. Neurosci. 6, 37 (2012)
Nagel, S., Carl, C., Kringe, T., Martin, R., Konig, P.: Beyond sensory substitution—Learning the sixth sense. Journal of Neural Engineering (2005)
International Association of Fire Chiefs: National Fire Protection Agency: Fundamentals of Fire Fighter Skills. Jones & Bartlett Learning (2004)
Denef, S., Ramirez, L., Dyrks, T., Stevens, G.: Handy navigation in ever-changing spaces: an ethnographic study of firefighting practices. In: Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, pp. 184–192. ACM, New York (2008)
Cassinelli, A., Reynolds, C.: Augmenting spatial awareness with Haptic Radar. In: Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 61–64. IEEE (2006)
Gallo, S., Chapuis, D., Santos-Carreras, L., Kim, Y., Retornaz, P., Bleuler, H., Gassert, R.: Augmented white cane with multimodal haptic feedback. In: 2010 3rd IEEE RAS and EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), pp. 149–155 (2010)
Sklar, A.E., Sarter, N.B.: Good vibrations: tactile feedback in support of attention allocation and human-automation coordination in event-driven domains. Hum. Factors 41, 543–552 (1999)
Hanson, J.V.M., Whitaker, D., Heron, J.: Preferential processing of tactile events under conditions of divided attention. Neuroreport 20, 1392–1396 (2009)
Stafford, T., Javaid, M., Mitchinson, B., Galloway, A., Prescott, T.J.: Integrating mented Senses into Active Perception: a Framework. Presented at the Royal Society meeting on Active Touch Sensing, Kavllie Royal Society International Centre, Buckingsham-shire (2011)
Bach-y-Rita, P., Kaczmarek, K.A., Tyler, M.E., Garcia-Lara, J.: Form perception with a 49-point electrotactile stimulus array on the tongue: a technical note. J. Rehabil. Res. Dev. 35, 427–430 (1998)
Dehaene, S.: The neural basis of the Weber-Fechner law: a logarithmic mental number line. Trends Cogn. Sci. 7, 145–147 (2003)
Hecht, S.: The visual discrimination of intensity and the Weber-Fechner law. J. Gen. Physiol. 7, 235–267 (1924)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bertram, C., Evans, M.H., Javaid, M., Stafford, T., Prescott, T. (2013). Sensory Augmentation with Distal Touch: The Tactile Helmet Project. In: Lepora, N.F., Mura, A., Krapp, H.G., Verschure, P.F.M.J., Prescott, T.J. (eds) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8064. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39802-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39802-5_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39801-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39802-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)