Stereohaptic Vibration: Out-of-Body Localization of Virtual Vibration Source Through Multiple Vibrotactile Stimuli on the Forearms

This paper proposes a novel concept of “stereohaptic vibration,” which employs distributed vibration to localize vibration sources outside the body. Inspired by amplitude panning, a stereophonic sound display technique, we developed a method to localize a virtual vibration source (VVS) by polarizing the perceived intensity of multiple vibration stimuli to a specific orientation. Considering the perceptual characteristics of high-frequency vibration, the perceived intensity of the VVS was allocated to multiple vibrators according to the distance and direction of the target. The velocity discrimination performance was confirmed by utilizing four stimuli around the arm and one vibration stimulus to the palm to localize the movement of a VVS throughout the arm. Discrimination experiments of the trajectory of outgoing objects with a single arm and dual arms revealed that our approach could localize in three dimensions, even outside the body. The proposed technology for localizing external virtual vibration sources is expected to enhance the virtual reality experience.