Between-Tactor Display Using Dynamic Tactile Stimuli

Abstract: Display of illusory vibration locations between physical vibrotactile motors (tactors) placed on the skin has the potential to reduce the number of tactors in distributed tactile displays. This paper presents a between-tactor display method that uses dynamic tactile stimuli to generate illusory vibration locations. A belt with only 6 vibration motors displays 24 targets consisting of on-tactor and between-tactor locations. On-tactor locations are represented by simply vibrating the relevant single tactor. Between-tactor locations are displayed by adjusting the relative vibration amplitudes of two adjacent motors, with either (1) constant vibration amplitudes or (2) perturbed vibration amplitudes (creating local illusory motion). User testing showed that perturbations improve recognition accuracy for in-between tactor localization.