Wearable cutaneous device for applying position/location haptic feedback in navigation applications

We present a wearable cutaneous device capable of applying lateral stretch and position/location haptic feedback to the user's skin. It is composed of a 2D Cartesian-like structure able to move a pin on the plane parallel to the skin. The pin houses a small metallic sphere of 8 mm of diameter. The sphere can be either left free to rotate when the pin moves, providing location feedback about its absolute position, or kept fixed, providing skin stretch about its relative displacement. The device weighs 30 g for a workspace of $12\times 12$ mm. This paper presents the device's design and actuation together with a perceptual evaluation of the position/location feedback provided by the device when worn around the forehead, forearm, and hand. Finally, we test the device in a preliminary human navigation task. Results show an average navigation error of 0.26 m, which is comparable to state-of-the-art vibrotactile guidance techniques using two vibrating armbands.