Skin Vibration-Based Tactile Tele-Sharing

This paper presents the sharing of tactile experiences between distant locations. A wearable sensor using a PVDF (polyvinylidene difluoride) film was used to detect the skin vibration on the finger, and the audio channel of computers was used to transmit the vibration information bidirectionally. We developed a prototype module having functions of inputting the sensor output as an audio signal and of driving a vibrator according to the audio signal. It was confirmed that the tactile information during various tasks could be transmitted via the Internet by using conventional videophone software.