A pilot study on simulating continuous sensation with two vibrating motors

This paper presents a pilot study to present a continuous touch sensation with low-resolution array of a vibrotactile device on human skin using funneling illusion. The funneling illusion occurs when two loud stimuli presented simultaneously to adjacent locations on the skin, and they are funneled to form a sensation between the two stimulators rather than felt separately. This sensation is affected by the separation of the stimuli, their relative amplitudes, and their temporal order. In this paper, the continuous touch sensation is simulated by changing the perceived intensities of two adjacent vibrating motors continuously on the skin. First of all, we obtain the relationship between the control intensity that affects Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) duration to actuate the vibrating motors and the perceived intensity of the sensation. Then, the continuous sensation is examined with two control conditions of the distance between two stimuli and the velocity of the simulated moving sensation for feasibility check. The results show that the continuously moving sensations can be presented by changing the perceived intensities of two vibrating motors opposite way in the condition of around 60 mm distance and 60 mm/s velocity.