痛覚錯覚を用いたインタフェースの開発

抄録

In nature, pain is one of the most important signals to preserve life for humans and animals. The unpleasantness of pain is a signal for a dangerous situation that should urgently be resolved. While humans experience many degrees of pain, and even use it for interacting with their living environments in daily life, there are few studies that utilize pain as an interface between human and their surrounding environment including machines. In this study, we develop a device to generate illusion of pain by using the “thermal grill illusion” caused by temperature stimulation on human skin. The objective of this research is to develop a new modality for interaction between humans and machines using illusion of pain, and to test the interface for remote operation of robot. The proposed interface induces a temporary illusion of mild pain on human skin without inflicting any injuries. The proposed interface enables humans to interact with machines including remotely located robots that convey their unfavorable situations in the form of pain-illusions that is directly sensed by humans. In this paper, the hardware platform for the pain-illusion generating device will be elaborated. The efficacy of the proposed interface will be evaluated through remote operation of mobile robot.