SoleSound: Towards a novel portable system for audio-tactile underfoot feedback

Abstract

This paper introduces the design of SoleSound, a wearable system designed to deliver ecological, audio-tactile, underfoot feedback. The device, which primarily targets clinical applications, uses an audio-tactile footstep synthesis engine informed by the readings of pressure and inertial sensors embedded in the footwear to integrate enhanced feedback modalities into the authors' previously developed instrumented footwear. The synthesis models currently implemented in the SoleSound simulate different ground surface interactions. Unlike similar devices, the system presented here is fully portable, and can therefore be utilized outside the laboratory setting. A first experimental evaluation indicates that the device can effectively modulate the perception of the ground surface during walking, thereby, inducing changes in the gait of healthy subjects.

Footstep sounds synthesis: Design, implementation, and evaluation of foot–floor interactions, surface materials, shoe types, and walkers’ features

“…It runs over mac, windows and linux operative systems. The computational cost of the algorithms is rather low: they run easily on ordinary computers and even mobile phones or other portable systems (e.g., [75]). In more detail, the implementations of the models for impact, friction, crumpling, and bouncing present in the Sound Design Toolkit [49] were utilized.…”

Designing presence for real locomotion in immersive virtual environments: an affordance-based experiential approach

“…TPAWT can be integrated with headphones or a surround sound system with algorithms for sound sources tridimensional spatialization and with the audio-tactile shoes proposed by Zanotto et al (2014). In addition, it can be extended by adding the warmth display presented by Hülsmann et al (2014).…”

“…CWP can be integrated with a portable eyes tracking device, headphones, or a surround sound system with algorithms for sound sources tridimensional spatialization and with the audio-tactile shoes proposed by Zanotto et al (2014). Local unevenness of virtual terrains could be simulated thanks to solutions similar to the series of linear actuators underneath the belt involved in GSS.…”

“…The tracking system can be extended to achieve a full body detection. Recently, the shoes have been improved both at hardware and at software level by Zanotto et al (2014): They are equipped with better embedded actuators; a greater number of actuators is involved; inertial sensors have been added; the auditory feedback comes directly from the feet thanks to small loudspeakers placed on the side of each shoe; the system is fully portable (no wires link the shoes to a computer running the synthesis engine); different types of foot-floor interaction (e.g., walking step, jumping step, scuffs) as well as the foot-floor dynamics are rendered thanks to the interactive sonification (Hermann et al 2011) of the data coming from the inertial sensors . In addition, it is possible to integrate the set of audio-tactile tiles developed by Visell et al (2009) in order to create stronger tactile sensations about self-motion.…”

Localization of self-generated synthetic footstep sounds on different walked-upon materials through headphones

“…A complicating factor is that various sound reproduction methods can be used to deliver the synthesized sounds to the walker: loudspeakers directly placed on top of the shoes (Papetti et al 2010;Zanotto et al 2014), on their soles (Papetti et al 2011), or embedded in the walking surface (Visell et al 2008). Also, the interactive delivery of footstep sounds can be achieved by means of a surround sound systems composed of loudspeakers (Turchet and Serafin 2011), while no extensive research has been conducted into headphone-based reproduction of interactive locomotion sounds.…”