We present ROomBOT, a novel concept of intelligent and embodied space where the room itself functions as an assistive robotic interface. Most prior research on intelligent spaces has focused on context sensing and home automation, lacking embodied capabilities for directly manipulating everyday physical objects such as books, blankets, and tables. To address this gap, ROomBOT actuates suspended robotic end-effectors that can move the entire room via ceiling-mounted winches, enabling extension of the user’s physical capabilities within the room. This enables assistive scenarios such as allowing wheelchair users to access objects placed at high locations or enabling bedridden individuals to retrieve a water bottle without leaving their bed, transforming ordinary rooms into assistive environments. We propose the interaction concept and design space of ROomBOT, emphasizing safety considerations for real-world deployment, and demonstrate its potential as a dynamic spatial interface that seamlessly augments daily human activities through a range of application scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce using scalable autostereoscopic displays that allow users to interact with floating images publicly, such as for digital signage. By tiling multiple display modules, it is possible to project larger autostereoscopic images in the air than by displaying it using a single display module. By projecting autostereoscopic images, it is possible for the user to understand the contents in better detail compared to a standard 2D public displays. Furthermore, by projecting floating images, it is possible to reduce the spatial divergence between the user's body and the autostereoscopic images, so that the user can interact intuitively with autostereoscopic images. Moreover, since this system has scalability, it is possible to expand the screen size just by adding more display modules. This expandability makes the system easy to move and arrange in public spaces. In this paper, we propose an autostereoscopic display module which can enlarge the screen size in the horizontal direction as the first step to realizing our concept.

Paper, as a traditional material for art and communication, shows great potential as a medium for organic user interfaces, with its ubiquity and flexibility. However, controlling and powering the sensors and actuators that enable interactive paper-crafts has not been fully explored. We present a method of selective inductive power transmission (SIPT) to support interactive paper-crafts. The novelty of this method is that the power transmitter can be controlled to selectively activate one specific receiver at a time through inductive power transferring with multiple receivers. This was achieved by changing the output frequency of the power transmitter to match the impedance of the receivers. The receivers could be embedded or printed to drive paper-crafts. Based on inductor–capacitor oscillating circuit and a function generator with a power amplifier, we developed two different prototypes of SIPT. By comparing the performance of both prototypes, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems, and their applications in different contexts of paper-crafts. In addition, we proposed the instructions for using SIPT in developing interactive paper-crafts. With this technology and instructions, we hope to facilitate users to easily design new types of paper-craft systems without being concerned about the arrangement of wire connections to power supply on a massive scale.

In this paper, we present a system, which could digitally stimulate the sense of taste (gustation) on human. The system utilizes electrical stimulation on human tongue to produce taste sensations. The initial experiments reveal that the method is viable and deserves further developments. This requires further analyses of the properties of electric pulses (current, frequency, and voltage) on tongue along with the stimulating material. The experimental results suggested that sourness, bitterness, and saltiness are the main sensations that could be evoked at present.

We propose a novel interface called Twinkle for interacting with an arbitrary physical surface using a handheld projector and a camera. When a user flashes a projection light on an object, the projected images react as if the user touched the object with the light. The handheld device recognizes the features of the physical environment and displays images and sounds that are generated in real-time according to the user's motion and collisions of projected images with objects. We realize this system by using several image-processing techniques and a collision detection algorithm. We also use an acceleration sensor to compensate for the image processing. In this paper, we explain the principle of interacting with a physical surface. Then, we describe the implementation of the prototype system and some application examples.

It is expected that the use of haptic sensors to measure the magnitude, direction, and distribution of a force will enable a robotic hand to perform dexterous manipulations. Therefore, we have developed a new type of finger-shaped haptic sensor that can measure a three-dimensional force vector field over a contact surface. The sensor consists of a transparent elastic body, two layers of internal blue and red markers, and a CCD camera to capture the movements of the markers. Using the elastic theory, we can calculate the force vector field from the captured movements of the markers. However, the elastic theory cannot be applied to the finger-shaped sensor because of its complicated shape. Therefore, we use actual measurements for the calibration in order to develop a prototype of the sensor. Then, we evaluate its basic performance. The result shows that the sensor performance can be improved further, and the sensor can be successfully used in a robotic hand.

For safety and operability of drivers while operating a vehicle, it is very important to obtain a wide field of vision. However, the space available for setting up windows is limited. Therefore, we propose a ";transparent cockpit,"; in which the image of a blind spot is displayed on the inner wall of the vehicle using a retro-reflective projection technology. In this system, the internal components of the vehicle, such as the doors and floor, are virtually transparent, and the blind spot is clearly visible, as observed from a window. In this paper, we describe the implementation of a prototype of the proposed system and demonstrate its effectiveness by an evaluation experiment.

In this paper, we present a high speed optical motion capture method that can measure three dimensional motion, orientation, and incident illumination at tagged points in a scene. We use tracking tags that work in natural lighting conditions and can be imperceptibly embedded in attire or other objects. Our system supports an unlimited number of tags in a scene, with each tag uniquely identified to eliminate marker reacquisition issues. Our tags also provide incident illumination data which can be used to match scene lighting when inserting synthetic elements. The technique is therefore ideal for on-set motion capture or real-time broadcasting of virtual sets. Unlike previous methods that employ high speed cameras or scanning lasers, we capture the scene appearance using the simplest possible optical devices - a light-emitting diode (LED) with a passive binary mask used as the transmitter and a photosensor used as the receiver. We strategically place a set of optical transmitters to spatio-temporally encode the volume of interest. Photosensors attached to scene points demultiplex the coded optical signals from multiple transmitters, allowing us to compute not only receiver location and orientation but also their incident illumination and the reflectance of the surfaces to which the photosensors are attached. We use our untethered tag system, called Prakash, to demonstrate methods of adding special effects to captured videos that cannot be accomplished using pure vision techniques that rely on camera images.