Head-mounted display with mid-air tactile feedback

PubDate: November 2015

Teams: University of Tampere

Writers: Antti Sand；Ismo Rakkolainen；Poika Isokoski；Jari Kangas；Roope Raisamo；Karri Palovuori

PDF: Head-mounted display with mid-air tactile feedback

Abstract

Virtual and physical worlds are merging. Currently users of head-mounted displays cannot have unobtrusive tactile feedback while touching virtual objects. We present a mid-air tactile feedback system for head-mounted displays. Our prototype uses the focus of a modulated ultrasonic phased array for unobtrusive mid-air tactile feedback generation. The array and the hand position sensor are mounted on the front surface of a head-mounted virtual reality display. The presented system can enhance 3D user interfaces and virtual reality in a new way.

To evaluate the tactile feedback together with visuals on an Oculus Rift VR headset, we had 13 participants do a simple virtual keypad tapping task with and without tactile feedback. The results indicate that while the measured speed and accuracy differed only a little, the subjects were nearly unanimous in that they preferred to use the tactile feedback. The “raw” NASA TLX questionnaires conducted after use revealed that the participants felt slightly less mental, physical and temporal demand with the tactile feedback. The participants’ self-assessment of their performance was also higher with the tactile feedback.