In this paper, we propose a method of alleviating a sense of unnaturalness and individual differences in pseudo-haptic experience in VR. The method is to use a non-isomorphic manipulation of a virtual body, where the actual and virtual body movement is decoupled. As an evaluation of this approach, two manipulation methods are compared in the task of pulling a virtual object in VR. In the first one, the user physically performs a pulling gesture, and in the second one, the user pulls with a controller's analog stick (Fig. 1). A temporal delay is added to the virtual object's motion for the pseudo-haptic effect. The results suggest a tendency where the individual differences in pseudo-haptic experience and unnaturalness were smaller with the analog stick manipulation, even with intensive pseudo-haptic expressions.

We introduce a stand-alone, wearable system with full body and finger tracking for first-person virtual reality (VR) avatars. The system does not rely on any external trackers or components. It comprises of a head-mounted display, inertial motion capture suit, VR gloves, and VR backpack PC. Making use of the wearable system and RUIS toolkit [1], we present an example implementation of our vision for physics-based full body avatar interaction. This envisioned interaction involves three elements from the reality-based interaction framework of Jacob et al. [2]: naïve physics, body awareness, and environment awareness. These elements lend common sense affordances within the virtual world and allow users to employ their everyday knowledge of the real world. We argue that when it comes to full body avatar interfaces, it is not only users, but also developers who benefit from utilizing physics simulation as the basis upon which different interaction techniques are built on. This physics-based approach provides intuitive manipulation and locomotion interactions without requiring individually crafted scripts. Our example implementation presents several such interactions. Furthermore, the many interaction techniques emerging from physical simulation are congruous with each other, which promotes user interface consistency. We also introduce the idea of using physics components (colliders, joints, materials, etc.) as 3D user interface building blocks, as opposed to scripting or visual programming.

In this paper, a metric weighting scheme on a coded fractional sampling orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (FS OFDM) system is investigated. FS achieves path diversity with a single antenna through oversampling and subcarrier-based maximal ratio combining (MRC). Though the oversampling increases diversity order, correlation among noise components may deteriorate bit error rate (BER) performance. To clarify the relationship between the impulse response of the pulse shaping filter and the BER performance, five different pulse shaping filters are evaluated in the coded FS OFDM system. Numerical results obtained through computer simulation show that the metric weighting based on the Frobenius norm improves BER performance of the coded FS OFDM system.

In this paper, we describe the design and development of a positioning and compensation device for a versatile micro robot. To provide microscopic operations, the versatile micro robot has developed. The robot can move in any direction in the manner of an inchworm. However many positioning errors exist because of an assembling error in the four piezoelectric actuators and two electromagnets. We need an automatic positioning device for more accurate work. Motion compensation is also highly required for more effective work. This robot is very small, so it can easily be set to work with the various devices. The positing device should also be small so that we can carry the device easily and set it up in a narrow working area. In this report, we propose a USB camera based positioning device with special compensation function. In experiments, we succeeded in controlling the robot on an octagonal path with controlling the posture angle freely. When we compensate for the motion, the positioning time becomes 60 % compared to that of no compensation. The design procedure, basic performance and biomedical application are also discussed as an advance in the new field of micro-robotics used in precision regions.

A method for controlling the grasping force when an object is grasped by artificial elastic fingers is proposed. First, the relationship between the stick area and the internal strain distribution of the finger is calculated using FE (finite element) analysis. Based on this relationship, a method is proposed for controlling the grasping force by decreasing the increasing ratio of the tangential force when the stick area is decreasing. Finally, the grasping force is controlled using an actual elastic finger, which is made of silicone rubber and in which strain gages are incorporated. It is confirmed that objects can be grasped using adequate grasping force without complete slippage, even when the weight and the friction coefficient of the objects are unknown.

Humans obtain complex information using different tactile receptors in the skin of the finger. Artificial tactile sensors capable of detecting complex information can be realized by imitating certain characteristics of the human finger, such as the geometry of the finger and the location of the tactile receptors. We analyze the strain distribution that occurs inside an elastic finger having a curved surface when the finger is in contact with an object. Detection of the shear strain distribution pattern is found to be important. In addition a strain distribution sensor is developed, in which strain gages bonded on thin plates are arranged at uniform intervals inside the curved surface of an elastic finger made of silicone rubber. The geometry of the elastic finger is designed by calculating the contact condition between the finger and objects with/without tangential load using FE (finite element) analysis. The fundamental characteristics of the strain distribution sensor are confirmed.