Dynamic Compression for Novel Haptic Interactions

Abstract

The sense of touch is an integral part of our everyday experiences. This research examines one of the ubiquitous touch sensations—compression, as a novel interface and mode of interaction. Specifically, it seeks to answer questions related to how people experience compression stimulus given varying compression inputs, applications and contexts. This work first investigates user perception of on-body compression, broadly, from an experience standpoint, including the consideration of parameters (varying compression intensity, duration, pattern, location) and confounds that influence user experience. In order to understand, evaluate, and deploy garment-based compression, however, advancements in wearable technology were required. Therefore, a portion of this work was also dedicated to the design and development of novel compression garment technologies. Taking a human-centered and iterative design approach, soft, garment-based compression technologies driven by shape memory alloy (SMA) actuation—a type of soft robotic actuator—were developed. The second half of this research builds upon the initial findings and examines application-specific cases of such compression technologies, with particular focus on its use in communicating and modulating emotions. The first application on the communication of emotions was motivated by the close relationship between social touch and emotions. Through two online surveys, this research characterized user expectations in selecting strategies of various intensities and patterns on different body locations for emotional communication through warm, compressive actuation (as afforded by the SMA garment), while delimiting/categorizing the range of mental models used during the process. The second application area involves the use of compression for affect modulation. Through a mindful meditation study augmented with compressive haptics delivered through the SMA-based garment, the potential of using compression to promote focused attention and facilitate an overall, positive meditation experience for novice practitioners was demonstrated. Ultimately, the results of this research give rise to new opportunities in a variety of applications and provide a roadmap for interface/interaction design in those context, including enabling new modes of interaction between users separated by distance (e.g., tele-rehabilitation, social mediated touch) as well as new haptic sensations in the area of immersive experiences (e.g., media augmentation, virtual reality).