Towards a tunable tactile communication system: concept and first experiments

We present a novel concept of a tactile communication system with dialog-based tuning possibilities for the exploration of tactile language developments. An experimental implementation of the proposed tactile intelligent sensory substitution system (TIS³) is being tested in a closed loop set up with human subjects. TIS³ consists of a tactile encoder (TE) to map desired objects onto a parallel stream of tactile stimulation time courses, a tactile stimulator (TS) to elicit spatio-temporal tactile sensations on a selected skin region, and a learning module (LM) to generate an ever improving parameter vector for TE based on the rating input of the human subject. As a first step, TE function was implemented as a set of 3×5 generators, which could be employed as a function of time by means of a DSP-based tunable spatio-temporal signal algorithm (TSA). Results showed that TIS³ in a closed loop with humans subjects could be tuned to yield clearly distinguishable tactile perceptions within less than 80 iteration cycles.