Kinesthetic Illusion of Being Pulled Sensation Enables Haptic Navigation for Broad Social Applications

Many handheld force-feedback devices have been proposed to provide a rich experience with mobile devices. However, previously reported devices have been unable to generate both constant and translational force. They can only generate transient rotational force since they use a change in angular momentum. Here, we exploit the nonlinearity of human perception to generate both constant and translational force. Specifically, a strong acceleration is generated for a very brief period in the desired direction, while a weaker acceleration is generated over a longer period in the opposite direction. The internal human haptic sensors do not detect the weaker acceleration, so the original position of the mass is "washed out". The result is that the user is tricked into perceiving a unidirectional force. This force can be made continuous by repeating the motions. This chapter describes the pseudoattraction force technique, which is a new force feedback technique that enables mobile devices to create a the sensation of two-dimensional force. A prototype was fabricated in which four slider-crank mechanism pairs were arranged in a cross shape and embedded in a force feedback display. Each slider-crank mechanism generates a force vector. By using the sum of the generated vectors, which are linearly independent, the force feedback display can create a force sensation in any arbitrary direction on a two-dimensional plane. We also introduce an interactive application with the force feedback display, an interactive robot, and a vision-based positioning system.