Design and Performance Analysis of a Skin-Stretcher Device for Urging Head Rotation

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel skin-stretcher device for gently urging head rotation. The device pulls and/or pushes the skin on the user's neck by using servo motors. The user is induced to rotate his/her head based on the sensation caused by the local stretching of skin. This mechanism informs the user when and how much the head rotation is requested; however it does not force head rotation, i.e., it allows the user to ignore the stimuli and to maintain voluntary movements. We implemented a prototype device and analyzed the performance of the skin stretcher as a human-in-the-loop system. Experimental results define its fundamental characteristics, such as input-output gain, settling time, and other dynamic behaviors. Features are analyzed, for example, input-output gain is stable within the same installation condition, but various between users.

DragTapVib: An On-Skin Electromagnetic Drag, Tap, and Vibration Actuator for Wearable Computing

“…In general, actuators generate tactile feedback by deforming the human skin. Therefore, previous works have used intuitive terminology to describe the output of the actuators, such as vibrotactile feedback, vibrating, tapping, pressing, squeezing, compressing, dragging, and stretching [14,15,24,37] etc.. Our device integrates the pressure force and shear force to render multiply sensations. There are two typical ways to apply shear force on the human skin.…”

“…Points. Ito et al [15] introduced a skin-stretcher worn around the users' neck for gently urging head rotation by using the servo motors to push / pull the skin. Muthukumarana et al [24] embedded shape memory alloy (SMA) wires in a lightweight actuator to stretch the skin.…”