Waypoint navigation with a vibrotactile waist belt

Abstract

Presenting waypoint navigation on a visual display is not suited for all situations. The present experiments investigate if it is feasible to present the navigation information on a tactile display. Important design issue of the display is how direction and distance information must be coded. Important usability issues are the resolution of the display and its usefulness in vibrating environments. In a pilot study with 12 pedestrians, different distance-coding schemes were compared. The schemes translated distance to vibration rhythm while the direction was translated into vibration location. The display consisted of eight tactors around the user's waist. The results show that mapping waypoint direction on the location of vibration is an effective coding scheme that requires no training, but that coding for distance does not improve performance compared to a control condition with no distance information. In Experiment 2, the usefulness of the tactile display was shown in two case studies with a helicopter and a fast boat.

NAVI – A Proof-of-Concept of a Mobile Navigational Aid for Visually Impaired Based on the Microsoft Kinect

“…Erp et al showed that encoding distances on a vibrotactile display is realized best with temporal patterns instead of changes in frequency or amplitude [5]. Based on several informal evaluations with different distance signals, we decided for a simple yet robust distance encoding with just three different outputs: no output meaning no obstacle, a 1 http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=34 500ms pulsed vibration for signaling obstacles between 1-2m distance and a continuous vibration for obstacles closer than 1m (Fig.…”

“…2). Erp et al also investigated that spatial information is encoded most effectively by applying the vibrotactile signals to different body locations [5]. Thus we located the vibe boards on the left, right and center of the person's waist to indicate the direction in which an obstacle was detected.…”

Kinesthetic Cues that Lead the Way

“…It has been reported that tactile interaction can effectively assist pedestrians with visual impairments when crossing the street (Ross and Blasch 2000). As tactile-based navigational aids, vibrotactile stimulation systems that use several vibrators in the shape of a cap (Cassinelli et al 2006), rings (Amemiya et al 2004), a vest (Erp et al 2005), belt (Tan et al 2003;Heuten et al 2008), and glove (Zelek et al 2003) have been proposed. Unfortunately, these tactile approaches require that users learn how to convert stimuli to information.…”

Gaze Cueing with a Vibrotactile Headband for a Visual Search Task

“…Upon sensing a touch, we typically shift our attention to that direction [3], which makes touch a suitable cue for egocentric orientation. With several vibrotactile actuators, it is possible to provide intuitive navigation information to users [18,27,29]. Other applications include motor skill learning in sports [24], helicopter landing [11], obstacle avoidance [1], visual search [14], and awareness of other people [20].…”

“…Other applications include motor skill learning in sports [24], helicopter landing [11], obstacle avoidance [1], visual search [14], and awareness of other people [20]. Vibrotactile stimulation in these applications has typically been presented to the user's torso [20,27,29], back [11], legs [24], hands [14], or shoulders [24]. Recently, researchers have started to consider the head as a potential body site.…”