TactoGlove: Displaying Tactile Sensations in Tacto-gestural Interaction

In the research field of augmented reality, many experimental systems have been introduced so far to provide natural interactions with a virtual character and a surrounded environment. To introduce a high level interaction, not only visual and auditory information but also other human sensations such as tactile sensations and somatosensory information should be presented to a user. In this study, we pay attention to the tactile sensation in the manipulation of a virtual character, and develop TactoGlove for presenting tactile sensations to a user. The virtual environment is manipulated by intuitive gestures, and tactile sensations corresponding with the gestural actions are presented to the user through TactoGove to establish multimodal interactions. Four subjects tried the system, and significant evaluations were obtained in the interaction between a virtual character and a user.