Informotionology and Emotion Control

Abstract

　Actuation provides motion control of an object and acquires reaction force as information through the motion. We advocate a new network structure called informotion, which is a coin combining information and motion to express those intrinsic characteristics possessed by actuation. After we will summarize informotionology which becomes one of academic fields of the informotion, we will progress the control method of informotion network systems causing complex systems’ behavior due to variety of actuators, and then we introduce emotion control, which is one of the most effective applications of the informotion network. Using variety of actuators we will control human emotion such as comfort feeling, courage and confidence. In this report, we describe two examples. One of them is Kinesthetic Illusion (KI) inducing movement feeling of limbs, which is controlled through vibration caused by a voice coil motor. KI has a possibility to enhance peaceful feeling on distal radius fracture patients. The other is Velvet Hand Illusion (VHI) inducing soft and smooth virtual surfaces, which is controlled through an array of piezoelectric ceramic actuators. VHI strength is related to integration processing of information in brain followed through Gestalts.