CyARM Haptic Sensing Device for Spatial Localization on Basis of Exploration by Arms.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Human-Computer Interaction Volume 2009, Article ID 901707, 6 pages doi:10.1155/2009/901707 Research Article CyARM: Haptic Sensing Device for Spatial Localization on Basis of Exploration by Arms Junichi Akita,1 Takanori komatsu,2 Kiyohide Ito,3 Tetsuo Ono,4 and Makoto Okamoto3 1 Department of Info.Sys.Eng., Kanazawa University, Kakuma, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-1192, Japan 2 International Young Researcher Empowerment Center, Shinshu University, 3-15-1 Tokida, Ueda, Nagano 386-8567, Japan 3 Department of Media Architecture, 116-2 Kamedanakano, Hakodate, Hokkaido 041-8655, Japan 4 Graduate School of Infomation Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Kita 14, Nishi 9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0814, Japan Correspondence should be addressed to Junichi Akita, akita@is.t.kanazawa-u.ac.jp Received 10 June 2009; Accepted 25 October 2009 Recommended by Sunil K. Agrawal We introduce a new type of perception aid device based on user’s exploration action, which is named as CyARM (acronym of “Cyber Arm”). The user holds this device in her/his arm, the extension of the arm is controlled by tension in wires, which are attached to her/his body according to the distance to the object. This user interface has unique characteristics that give users the illusion of an imaginary arm that extends to existing objects. The implementations of CyARM and our two experiments to investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of CyARM are described. The results show that we could confirm that CyARM can be used to recognize the presence of an object in front of the user and to measure the relative distance to the object. Copyright © 2009 Junichi Akita et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attributio