We can pass through the wall gap: aperture passage perception via vibration stimuli generated from distance variation

We have been developing a helmet-type spatial perception support system that provides the user with vibration stimuli in response to the distance variation to an obstacle. The purpose of this research is set to propose a method for generating vibration stimuli that appropriately represent two environmental elements, walls and apertures, and verify its effectiveness for the aperture passage perception. The five vibro-motors are positioned at directional angles of 0 degree in front, 30 and 60 degrees to left and right, and generate vibration stimuli of an intensity calculated by assigning appropriate damping weights. We set the distance-dependent damping weights separately for each directional angle in the calculation of the vibration intensity to be generated for each motor. Experimental results demonstrate that the subjects were able to pass through the aperture in approximately 91 % of trials. This suggests that the developed system and the proposed vibration stimuli generation method are effective in perceiving space from the vibration stimuli provided to the head.