Selective stimulation to superficial mechanoreceptors by temporal control of suction pressure

In this paper we propose a new set of primitives to realize a large-area covering realistic tactile display. They stimulate the skin surface with suction pressure (SPS method) as our former paper proposed. The difference from the former device is that a single suction hole provides a pair of primitives. Since the identical hole provides the multiple primitives, we can expect multi-primitive tactile stimulation is realized more stably, and the physical structure is simpler than the former method. The method uses the frequency characteristics of the mechanoreceptor sensitivity and a feature of SPS that suction pressure through a hole does not reach the deep receptors, Pacinian corpuscles. We show the basic theory and results of fundamental experiments. In the experiments, we show the spatial feature of the virtual object (edged or round) can be controlled by the temporal profile of the primitives. We explain the reason of the phenomena based on a tactile perception model called simple bundle model.