Far touch: integrating visual and haptic perceptual processing on wearables

The evolution of electronic computers seems to have now reached the ubiquitous realm of wearable computing. Although a vast gamut of systems has been proposed so far, we believe most systems lack proper feedback for the user. In this dissertation, we not only contribute to solving the feedback problem, but we also consider the design of a system to acquire and reproduce the sense of touch. In order for such a system to be feasible, a few important problems need to be considered. Here, we address two of them. First, we know that wireless streaming of high resolution video to a head-mounted display requires high compression ratio. Second, we know that the choice of a proper feedback for the user depends on his/her ability to perceive it confidently across different scenarios. In order to solve the first problem, we propose a new limit that promises theoretically achievable data reduction ratios up to approximately 9:1 with no perceptual loss in typical scenarios. Also, we introduce a novel Gaussian foveation scheme that provides experimentally achievable gains up to approximately 2 times the compression ratio of typical compression schemes with less perceptual loss than in typical transmissions. The background material of both the limit and the foveation scheme includes a proposed pointwise retina-based constraint called pixel efficiency, that can be globally processed to reveal the perceptual efficiency of a display, and can be used together with a lossy parameter to locally control the spatial resolution of a foveated image. In order to solve the second problem, we provide an estimation of difference threshold that suggests that typically humans are able to discriminate between at least 6 different frequencies of an electrotactile stimulation. Also, we propose a novel sequence of experiments that suggests that a change from active touch to passive touch, or from a visual-haptic environment to a haptic environment, typically yields a reduction of the sensitivity index d' and in an increase of the response bias c.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Targino Da Costa, Andre Luiz Nunes

Contributors dc:contributor

• Do, Minh N.
• Moulin, Pierre
• Simons, Daniel J.
• Smaragdis, Paris

• Perception
• Wearables
• Signal Processing
• Vision
• Haptics
• Touch
• Image Processing
• Foveation
• Compression
• Perceptually Lossless Compression
• Lossy Compression
• Electrotactile
• Active Touch
• Passive Touch
• Visual-Haptic Environment
• Haptic Environment
• Sensitivity Index
• Response Bias

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 André Targino

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78418

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/78418