2010 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 147-154
Spatially distributed tactile information is essential for dexterous operation in telexistence. In this study, we propose a transmission system of spatially distributed tactile information using a finger-shaped GelForce and an electrotactile display that we have developed. Because the finger-shaped GelForce consists of elastic body, it can mimic the deformation of human finger on measuring information. The electrotactile display is suitable for presenting tactile information to user's fingers, because it does not need any actuators to present tactile information. We improved the softness of the finger-shaped GelForce and realized a one-fingered transmission system of the proposed method. We evaluated a spatial resolution of the constructed system from three discrimination experiments. From the result, we estimated the current limit to improve the spatial resolution of the proposed system. Furthermore, we confirmed that the proposed system can be efficient for the multi-fingered telexistence system.
