Pseudo Force Device Asymmetric Acceleration Tactile Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional mobile and wearable devices rely heavily on visual and auditory feedback, which can overwhelm users, leading to ignored or inaccurately perceived information, especially in situations like driving or texting, potentially causing safety hazards.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses a user-mounted device with masses on tracks, employing asymmetric acceleration to generate pseudo forces, providing non-visual and non-auditory information to users through directional forces, allowing for intuitive communication of instructions and alerts without diverting attention from critical tasks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If visual and auditory feedback are used to convey information to users, then detailed information can be communicated, but the user's visual and auditory channels become information-saturated, leading to ignored or inaccurately perceived information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a tactile feedback intermediary (haptic actuator) that translates information into physical sensations the user can feel through touch. This mediator converts digital information into tactile patterns, allowing information transmission through a different sensory channel that doesn't compete with visual and auditory processing, thereby avoiding information saturation while maintaining effective communication.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions information transmission from two-dimensional visual/auditory channels to a tactile dimension through haptic feedback. By adding this third sensory dimension, the system enables parallel information processing without overloading existing channels, allowing users to receive and process information through touch while maintaining visual and auditory attention on primary tasks.
2Loss of information
If visual feedback is provided to users during activities like driving or texting, then navigation instructions can be communicated, but the user must divert attention from the primary task, creating safety hazards
Solution Approach 1:
The tactile feedback system serves as an intermediary that delivers information through the user's sense of touch rather than requiring visual attention. The haptic actuator communicates navigation instructions and alerts through tactile patterns that the user can perceive while maintaining focus on driving or texting, eliminating the need to divert attention to visual displays and thereby maintaining safety.
3Duration of action of moving object
If multiple actuators operate simultaneously to provide continuous feedback, then information can be communicated continuously, but the control signals may overlap and interfere with each other
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs periodic action by sequentially activating actuators in a coordinated cycle rather than having them operate simultaneously and continuously. Each actuator is activated in turn according to a periodic schedule, creating continuous feedback through temporal sequencing. This approach maintains feedback continuity while simplifying control signal coordination, as each actuator operates in its designated time window without overlapping with others.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables effective communication of information without overwhelming the user's visual and auditory channels, enhancing safety by allowing users to receive instructions and alerts without diverting attention from their environment.
Implementation Method 1
A magnitude of the first acceleration is above a threshold acceleration, and a magnitude of the second acceleration is below the threshold acceleration
Implementation Method 2
employing asymmetric acceleration to generate pseudo forces, providing non-visual and non-auditory information to users through directional forces
Data Source
Figure 1A~1B
Figure 1C~1D
Figure 2
AI summary
A system for exerting forces on a user. The system includes a user-mounted device having one or more masses disposed along one or more tracks. The system further includes a processor configured to generate a first actuator control signal to configure a first actuator to move a first mass included in the one or more masses at a first acceleration in a first direction along a first track included in the one or more tracks. The processor is further configured to generate a second actuator control signal to configure at least one of the first actuator and a second actuator to move the first mass at a second acceleration in the first direction along the first track. A magnitude of the first acceleration is above a threshold acceleration, and a magnitude of the second acceleration is below the threshold acceleration.