Development of a communication robot that moves a tablet computer for tactile feedback

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25280073
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Human interface and interaction
• Research Institution: Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Kumazawa Itsuo 東京工業大学, 科学技術創成研究院, 教授 (70186469)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 佐藤 誠 東京工業大学, 精密工学研究所, 教授 (50114872)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 触覚 / 圧力センサ / タブレット端末 / タッチパネル / 硬さ柔らかさの触感 / 凸凹の触感 / マンマシンインタラクション / ユーザインターフェイス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

A communication robot that moves a tablet put on its stage and provides tactile feedback to the fingers on its touch panel is developed. Six pressure sensors are implemented to detect the pressure given from a finger to the touch panel. The feeling of stiffness and touching a 3D shape is represented by moving the tablet and giving a force to the finger depending on the pressure. The project is extended with a year and a handheld version of the communication robot is developed. The robot provides tactile feedback to the fingers on the back of a smartphone. It detects the finger action and the relative position of the smartphone against the face using an accelerometer, a rotary encoder, a pressure sensor and an image sensor and operations for the smartphone are performed intuitively an an interactive fashion using these sensors and the tactile feedback.

Free Research Field

画像認識、画像処理、ユーザインターフェイス