Spatiotemporal Coupler: Storage and Reproduction of Human Finger Motions

Currently, the development of a leading-edge technology for saving and reproducing human motions in terms of haptic information is required for various fields. To address these requirements, a motion-copying system has already been proposed. This system is a key technology that enables the realization of the acquisition, preservation, and reproduction of real-world haptic information. In order to apply this system to various fields, the use of the concept involving two types of coupling is important: that involving spatial and temporal couplings. In this paper, the use of the concept mentioned earlier is proposed, and the related system is named “spatiotemporal coupler.” The proposed coupler is divided into two couplers. One is a spatial coupler, and the other is a temporal coupler. The spatial coupler connects human motions that are saved by haptic devices with different configurations according to the information for a human model. On the other hand, the temporal coupler integrates the saved motions temporally, and the integrated motion is reproduced as a single motion. The proposed concept is applied to finger motion in the experiments. The experimental results validate the proposed technology.