VibroGlove
Members
Dr. Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan
Dr. Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan
The VibroGlove is a novel interface for enhancing human-human interpersonal interactions. Specifically, the device is targeted as an assistive aid to deliver the facial expressions of an interaction partner to people who are blind or visually impaired. (This device is being used, along with the haptic belt, in the Social Interaction Assistant research project.) Vibration motors, mounted on the back of a glove, provide a means for conveying haptic emoticons that represent the six basic human emotions and the neutral expression of the user’s interaction partner. The main research challenge is designing haptic emoticons, i.e., spatio-temporal vibration patterns, that are both distinct and intuitive in terms of communicating information about facial expressions. We are currently exploring this design space, and evaluating the VibroGlove in various applications including Haptics in Audio Described Movies.