Aarnio: passive kinesthetic force output for foreground interactions on an interactive chair

Aarnio modulates the resistive force of rotating, tilting and rolling an office chair for new applications.

We propose a new type of haptic output for foreground interactions on an interactive chair, where input is carried out explicitly in the foreground of the user’s consciousness. This type of force output restricts a user’s motion by modulating the resistive force when rotating a seat, tilting the backrest, or rolling the chair. These interactions are useful for many applications in a ubiquitous computing environment, ranging from immersive VR games to rapid and private query of information for people who are occupied with other tasks (e.g. in a meeting). We carefully designed and implemented our proposed haptic force output on a standard office chair and determined the recognizability of five force profiles for rotating, tilting, and rolling the chair. We present the result of our studies, as well as a set of novel interaction techniques enabled by this new force output for chairs.

我們提出在互動座椅上一種全新的觸覺回饋稱之為被動式動覺力量回饋，此類型的回饋能夠伴隨著使用者的主動輸入而提供相對應的輸出。我們設計使用者於旋轉座椅、後傾椅背、推動輪子時，透過馬達與機構，改變動作的阻力，藉以傳達動覺回饋。這些回饋適用於遍布式運算環境，包含虛擬實境(VR)、私密資訊獲取等。我們根據常見辦公室座椅之特性，設計不同之力量回饋圖形，並進行使用者實驗，驗證這些力量回饋之辨識度。在實驗中，於旋轉、後傾、移動的回饋分別獲得93.75%、87.3%、93.0% 正確率。我們希望能夠啟發日後在物聯網(IoT)與互動家具的開發。