Touch and Go

In today's fast-paced and technology-driven world, our senses are frequently bombarded by a relentless stream of sights and sounds from our electronic devices. From smartphones and laptops to televisions and advertisements, we are surrounded by screens and sounds that vie for our attention at every turn. This constant exposure has led to a phenomenon where our sensory faculties are often overwhelmed, causing us to miss out on essential visual and auditory cues that play a crucial role in our daily lives, alerting us to important information.

Our brains are only capable of processing a limited amount of information at once, and when faced with an excessive amount of a particular type of stimulus, we become prone to filtering out crucial cues in an attempt to manage the influx of data. For instance, notifications from smartphones, flashy advertisements, and constant background noise can divert our attention from important sounds and sights in our environment, such as a car horn, a person calling for help, or even a meaningful facial expression.

Recognizing the challenges posed by sensory overload, some innovative solutions are emerging to leverage alternative and underutilized communication modes like touch. Tactile sensations have a unique ability to capture attention, as they offer a physical and immediate connection to our senses. Adoption of these technologies has been very slow, however, due in large part to the fact that bulky hardware is often required, making wearable devices based on them impractical for everyday use.

A prototype device built by a team at Rice University that incorporates haptic feedback into wearable fabrics may help to make these types of interfaces more practical. The researchers’ textile wristbands and sleeves have a number of pouches that can be inflated with air to provide complex haptic cues, like vibration, tapping, and squeezing. The entire system is small, lightweight, and self-contained, so it will not be very limiting in one’s day-to-day activities.

Made from heat-sealable textiles, the wearable devices can transmit information through the wrist or arm. They do this through the application of a pneumatic pressure that alters the geometric design of the textile layers. A small tank of carbon dioxide, clipped to a belt, supplies the system with the pneumatic pressure for actuation, which is controlled by an Arduino Nano. Each sleeve has six inflatable pouches, which can be inflated to different levels of firmness, and at varying rates to convey different information to the wearer. The pouches can also be filled in different patterns to express more complex information.

Some field testing was conducted to assess how well the technology works for users under real-world conditions. In one test, a participant was guided on a one-mile walk through the streets of Houston, with haptic cues providing directions, like when and where to make a turn. In another trial that served to show the accuracy of the system, a participant walked a path through a field that traced out the shapes of invisible Tetris blocks, with only haptic signals for navigation.

Durability testing was also carried out in which the textiles were washed 25 times, cut with a knife, then patched. Even after this abuse, the haptic feedback system worked flawlessly. This bodes well for the durability of the device in real-world conditions.

In the future, the team envisions their technology being incorporated into articles of clothing so that it can be leveraged for a variety of applications. They also see their system being used to aid those with visual or auditory disabilities, to help them navigate and avoid colliding with objects. It was noted that using haptic signals to reinforce the information being received by, for example, a cochlear implant, could make tasks like lip reading a bit easier. Time will tell if their design is small and unobtrusive enough to be acceptable for regular use.