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In the domain of haptics, the sensation of touch is normally classed into two types: tactile and kinesthetic. Correspondingly, the haptic display can also be divided into two categories: tactile display and kinesthetic display. The two aspects are commonly addressed separately, but life experience has shown that this is not intuitive and not effective. Therefore, it is a significant work to couple the tactile display and the kinesthetic display. In this paper, we propose a new design of haptic display coupling tactile and kinesthetic feedback for rendering spatial texture (tactile) and haptic shape (kinesthetic). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed a novel haptic interface FlexTorque that enables realistic physical interaction with real (through teleoperation system) and Virtual Environments. The idea behind FlexTorque is to reproduce human muscle structure, which allows us to perform dexterous manipulation and safe interaction with environment in daily life. FlexTorque suggests new possibilities for highly realistic, very natural physical interaction in virtual environments. There are no restrictions on the arm movement, and it is not necessary to hold a physical object during interaction with objects in virtual reality. Because the system can generate strong forces, even though it is light-weight, easily wearable, and intuitive, users experience a new level of realism as they interact with virtual environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motivation behind our work is to enrich social interaction and emotional involvement of the users of online communication media. The paper focuses on a novel haptic display HaptiHug for the representation of hug over a distance by means of online communication system supporting haptic feedback. The system integrates 3D virtual world Second Life, intelligent component for automatic recognition of hug cue from text messages, and innovative affective haptic interface providing additional nonverbal communication channel through simulation of social touch. Based on the real data (the pressure and duration of the interpersonal hug), the control system generates a signal that produces the feelings similar to the real hugging sensations. User study revealed that social pseudo-touch was successful in increasing the hugging immersion as well as hugging sensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on a novel system iFeel_IM! that integrates 3D virtual world Second Life, intelligent component for automatic emotion recognition from text messages, and innovative affective haptic interfaces providing additional nonverbal communication channels through simulation of emotional feedback and social touch (physical co-presence). The core component, Affect Analysis Model, automatically recognizes nine emotions from text. The detected emotion is stimulated by innovative haptic devices integrated into iFeel_IM!. Users can not only exchange messages but also emotionally and physically feel the presence of the communication partner (e.g., family member, friend, or beloved person). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a multimodal interface on the abdomen to realize the experience of ″being cut by a sword″, for gaming applications. Tactile and auditory sensations were simultaneously presented on the abdomen by using sparsely located tactors and densely located speakers. We compared motion of the two modalities, and compared tactile apparent movement with auditory motion, focusing on the position and speed. Subjectively equivalent position and velocity of the two modalities matched well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a wearable haptic display that indicates the pressure and vibration on the palm for bimanual operations in virtual reality environments. This system aims to provide the touch and stroke sensations of virtual objects or virtual creatures. We constructed a prototype device that can reproduce vertical and shearing forces on the palm and evaluate the capability of the proposed method to recognize the existence of a virtual object in one-handed and two-handed operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]