SwarmCloak: Landing of a Swarm of Nano-Quadrotors on Human Arms

We propose a novel system SwarmCloak for landing of a fleet of four flying robots on the human arms using light-sensitive landing pads with vibrotactile feedback. We developed two types of wearable tactile displays with vibromotors which are activated by the light emitted from the LED array at the bottom of quadcopters. In a user study, participants were asked to adjust the position of the arms to land up to two drones, having only visual feedback, only tactile feedback or visual-tactile feedback. The experiment revealed that when the number of drones increases, tactile feedback plays a more important role in accurate landing and operator's convenience. An important finding is that the best landing performance is achieved with the combination of tactile and visual feedback. The proposed technology could have a strong impact on the human-swarm interaction, providing a new level of intuitiveness and engagement into the swarm deployment just right from the skin surface.Comment: ACM Siggraph Asia 2019 conference (Emerging Technologies section). Best Demo Award by committee member

Tactile motion aftereVects produced by appropriate presentation for mechanoreceptors

Abstract Tactile motion perception is one of the most important functions for realizing a delicate appreciation of the tactile world. To explore the neural dynamics of motion processing in the brain, the motion adaptation phenomenon can be a useful probe. Tactile motion aftereVects (MAE), however, have not been reported in a reproducible fashion, and the indistinctive outcomes of the previous studies can be ascribed to the non-optimal choice of adapting and testing stimuli. Considering the features of the stimuli used in the studies, the stimuli activated the diVerent mechanoreceptors in the adapting and testing phase. Consequently, we tested tactile MAE using appropriate combinations of adapting and testing stimuli. We used three pins to generate sensation of apparent motion on the Wnger cushion. They were sequentially vibrated with the frequency of 30 Hz both in adapting and testing phases. It is expected that this procedure ensured stimulation for the same mechanoreceptor (Rapid-Adapting mechanoreceptor) in both the adaptation and test phases. Using this procedure, we found robust tactile MAEs in the various tactile motions such as the shortdistance motion within the Wngertip, the long-distance motion from the Wnger base to the Wngertip, and the circular motion on the Wngertip. Our development of a protocol that reliably produces tactile MAEs will provide a useful psychophysical probe into the neural mechanisms of tactile motion processing

Research Activities in the Department of Physical Therapy

[Introduction] It is already fifty years since the Japanese law of physical therapists and occupational therapists has been effective. The physical therapist is referred by the law as "the professionals who implements the physical therapy to persons with disabilities under the prescription of medical doctors". In fifty years, however, the target of physical therapy has been significantly expanded. The subject for physical therapy now includes the patients in acute disease just after the surgical operation in addition to those in rehabilitation stage. In other words, the physical therapy is now recognized as the indispensable intervention to the subject with acute as well as chronic disorders. On the other hand, due to a rapid transition of the society into the aged society, prevention of diseases, and decline of activity capacity due to the aging have become major issues for the physical therapy

リンショウ キョウイン セイド ノ ドウニュウ ト ソノ カノウセイ

昨今の理学療法士養成教育が抱える諸問題多く, 特に養成校の急増に伴う臨床実習施設の不足問題, 実習指導者の指導経験不足問題など様々な重要課題が山積状態となっている. その問題の解決策として, 藍野大学医療保健学部理学療法学科では, 2008年度より臨床教員制度を用いた新たな臨床実習形態の導入を試みている. 臨床教員制度とは, 藍野大学で雇用している教員(助手)を, 臨床教員として関連病院(藍野病院)に派遣し, 臨床教育指導主体の業務に携わらせる制度の事である. 臨床教員は, 関連病院で理学療法士としての診療業務を行いながら, 実習期間には臨床実習指導者として中心的役割を担っている. 今回その制度の紹介と学生教育における効果および今後の可能性について考察し, 近々訪れる大学全入時代に向けての藍野大学理学療法学科としての方策について知見を述べる.As we train the students majoring in physical therapy, there are various problems like the lack of clinical practice facilities because of the rapid increase of the physical therapy training school and shortage of clinical instructor\u27s experience. To solve the problems written above, we, physical therapy department of Aino University, tried to introduce a new clinical practice system in 2008. On this new clinical practice, we send the university assistants who have a lot of experience in the clinical field of physical therapy to the associated hospital and make them involved in the clinical and educational work. We introduce this new clinical system here and describe about educational effect of this system and clinical training form to be changed

HARVEST: High-Resolution Haptic Vest and Fingertip Sensing Glove That Transfers Tactile Sensation of Fingers to the Back

Human fingertips are densely populated with tactile receptors and are hence incredibly sensitive. However, wearing gloves on the fingers drastically reduces the tactile information available to the fingertips, such as the texture and shape of the object, and makes it difficult to perform dexterous work. As a solution, in this study, we developed a high-resolution haptic vest that transfers the tactile sensation of the fingertips to the back. The haptic vest contains 80 voice-coil type vibrators which are located at each of the two discrimination thresholds on the back and can be driven independently. The tactile sensation of the fingertips is transferred to the back using the developed haptic vest in combination with a sensing glove that can detect the pressure distribution on the finger skin at up to 100 points. Different experiments were conducted to validate the performance of the proposed haptic vest and sensing gloves. The use of the haptic vest and the sensing glove enabled the user to perceive the shape of a planar object more accurately when compared to the case where the user wore only the glove

Measurement of the Transfer Function of Kinesthetic Illusion Induced by Antagonistic Tendon Vibration

The kinesthetic illusion induced by tendon vibration has the potential to be applied to virtual reality because it can provide the sensation of motion without the need to actually move the body. The psychophysical and neurophysiological properties of this phenomenon have been studied for a long time, and more recently, research has been conducted to realize the presentation of complex motion. However, there is still a lack of knowledge that quantitatively relates time-varying vibratory stimuli to the resulting kinesthesia. In response to this situation, we experimentally quantify the relationship between the time-varying frequency of the vibratory stimuli and the perceived joint angle, as a transfer function which is directly applicable to the presentation of kinesthetic illusions. To minimize temporal error, we presented vibration stimuli to one arm and a physical motion to the other arm, and asked participants to adjust the amplitude and phase of the physical motion so that the sensations of the two stimuli matched. The transfer function obtained from the experiment was nearly constant between the presented reciprocating frequencies of 0.05 Hz and 0.30 Hz, with a flat amplitude response and a phase advance of approximately 180 degrees. This transfer function represents motion in the opposite direction to that expected from existing knowledge. The most plausible explanation for this is the generation of an illusory force sensation by activation of the Golgi tendon organ. However, there is a small possibility that this was due to tonic vibration reflexes or a misunderstanding of the experimental task