Sound Reduction of Vibration Feedback by Perceptually Similar Modulation

The transmission of high-frequency collision vibration can effectively deliver tactile characteristics in teleoperation of remote robots and the virtual environment. However, high-frequency vibrations also introduces audible noise. To address this issue, we modulated the frequency and amplitude of collision vibration to keep the perceptually similar while reducing the sound of the vibrations. Our experimental results showed that the sound pressure level of the collision vibrations (f = 675 Hz and 1012 Hz) is higher than the perceptual similar collision vibrations (f = 300 Hz and 450 Hz). These results suggest that our modulation method is able to reduce the sound level of the collision vibrations while maintaining the perceptual similarity.