WaterForest with Waving Blanket

What is it about?

Perceiving multiple tactile sensations in virtual reality(VR) is one of the keys to enabling a compelling, immersive experience. The haptic experience consists of different receptors on the human body. Although several haptic technologies can produce different tactile stimulation to achieve the experience, the hybrid haptic system needs to combine each technique, requiring a complex configuration. Therefore, our goal is to provide several stimulations in one technique to reduce the effort to integrate haptic devices. This paper presents Waving Blanket, a dynamic liquid distribution system for multiple tactile feedback, utilizing a water pump and air valve to transmit and allocate the liquid in the pipe. We designed a virtual natural scene and developed a relaxation application called "Water Forest" with our haptic system to show the possibility by combining visual-auditory feedback. Additionally, a rewirable piping system is adopted to explore the mechanism of simulating vibration, pressure, weight, and weight-shifting feedback.

Featured Image

Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash

Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We present Waving Blanket, a dynamic liquid distribution system for enhancing the haptic experience in VR with multiple tactile feedback. Our system consists of two subsystems: (a)water-air cycle system and (b) rewirable piping system. The water-air cycle system is designed for dynamic controlling the distribution of water and air, and to reuse the water stored in the water tank(1000ml), which utilizes an arduino with motor driver and bluetooth to send the command to a water pump (70 ̃76ml/s) and an air valve. To reduce the noise generated by the water pump, we utilize sound-absorbing cotton to cover the inner wall of the device and an anti-vibration pad below the pump. Additionally, we design a rewirable piping system to explore the possibility of wire forms and liquid distribu-tion for multiple tactile feedback.