Detachable Body: The Impact of Binocular Disparity and Vibrotactile Feedback in Co-Presence Tasks

Detachable Body is a new concept of a robot arm wearable as an extended part of the body. It can be detached from the user's natural body; it can be attached not only to another person but also anywhere in the environment. Humans can eventually perform tasks that involve co-presence, or tasks that are concurrent and performed in two separate places, by utilizing the Detachable Body. In this letter, we design an information presentation interface to concurrently manage both the natural and detached bodies that are located in two separate locations. The interface consists of a vision presentation system that superimposes two environment images with binocular disparity, and a proprioception presentation system that provides somatosensory feedback of the detached arm's position. The usability of the proposed interface was evaluated by measuring work efficiency and subjective evaluation in a task involving co-presence. The results suggest the existence of the effects of the binocular disparity in the vision presentation system and the tactile information provided via feedback.