Haptic Interface Using Tendon Electrical Stimulation: Evaluation of the Effectiveness on Multimodal Presentation

Our previous studies [1] have shown that electrical stimulation from the skin surface to the tendon region (Tendon Electrical Stimulation: TES) can elicit a force sensation. TES is thought to present a proprioceptive force sensation by stimulating receptors or sensory nerves responsible for recognizing the magnitude of the muscle contraction existing inside the tendon. While TES can induce such a force sensation, it has several limitations such as difficulty in presenting a momentary strong sensation, such as a collision. In order to address these issues and produce a more realistic and natural sensation, we constructed a multimodal presentation system that gives the users multiple cues about a situation where a force is applied to the user. In this study, we used TES as the part to present proprioception, vibration to present a cutaneous sensation, and a visual head mounted display (HMD) system to present simultaneous images (Figure 1). We adopted a damped sine wave vibration often used for the expression of collision [2]. Using this system, we investigated whether TES could contribute to the reproduction of haptics in a way that was similar to other modalities even if it is momentary collision situation. We also evaluated the efficacy of TES itself and that of the multimodal system involving TES.