Haptic Display Glove Capable ofForce/Vibration/Temperature
Dr.Fuimihiro KatoThe University of Tokyo
Institute of Gerontology
Tokyo, Japan
fumihiro.kato@tachilab.org

Dr.Yasuyuki Inoue
The University of Tokyo
Institute of Gerontology
Tokyo, Japany-inoue@tachilab.org

Abstract— Since human skin has tactile receptors for force,
vibration, and temperature, if it can be presented, it isconsidered possible to present various textures based on thetheory of haptic primary colors. In this study, we propose ahaptic glove that enables the display of the three haptic elements.
A haptic glove for one finger was developed by combining athread drive actuator for force display from tactile to deep
sensation and a vibration/temperature display device
specialized for tactile presentation. We also showed that it ispossible to present multiple softness to the finger. It is capablethat combine the proposed haptic device and the vibro-thermal
tactile unit to display Haptic Primary Colors. With our system,
sensing of the finger is also capable of using a depth-sensing
camera.
Keywords— haptic display, haptic primary colors, humanoid
robot, telexistence

I. INTRODUCTION
High fidelity tactile presentation improves the reality of the
VR experience. Haptic presentation technology is becoming
more and more important as audiovisual VR has become
widespread and tactile presentation devices are becoming
popular. Tactile presentation devices for VR/gaming
controller (e.g. Nintendo Switch and Oculus touch) aremainly presenting vibration. However, since human skin has
not only vibration but also receptors for force andtemperature, presentation of these are necessary for highfidelity tactile presentation. The most of all game controller
may be made of hard plastic, and the soft material cannot bepresented as it is. Tactile presentation by pressing the trigger
button using above game controllers[1] are capable. But
because it is not possible to freely design the hardness. It isdifficult to present softness.
The presentation of a soft material such as a blanket or
rubber sponge requires presentation of a sense of touch felt inthe skin at the moment of touch, and a deep sensation felt inthe joints of the fingers. There are some reports[2] [3] that thechange in the contact area of the fingerpad is a factor in thepresentation of softness. However, those need to cover thefingerpad.
As a haptic presentation device, a method of presenting
force with a link mechanism has been proposed. Although alarge force can be presented, the mechanism for transmitting
force is not one that can be worn by hand, but one that is large
and stationary[4][5][6]. A small-sized / scaled presentation
device SPIDAR-G6[7] had been proposed by reducing
transmission parts such as gears and links by using a large
mechanism as a thread drive or separating an actuator from thepresentation unit. By using a motor capable of outputting ahigh torque force, the reduction gear is unnecessary and theforce transmission from the motor directly to the pulley isrealized by the thread drive. In addition, the SPIDAR motor
has back drivability, and it is possible to measure the length of

Dr.Susumu Tachi
The University of Tokyo
Institute of Gerontology
Tokyo, Japantachi@tachilab.org

the thread which is tensioned by light force. Since the positionof the thread knot can be calculated from the measured thread
length, the motor output can be adjusted. The force required
for tactile presentation that can be felt on the skin is small atthe beginning of presentation. It is necessary to output a large
force so as to move the joint gradually. The back drivability
enables to serve this purpose. Therefore, we propose awearable-type force presentation method that presents theforce to the fingertip and deep sensation by thread drive. A
thread drive system NUIBOT[8] has been proposed whichdevelops SPIDAR and moves a stuffed toy arm. However, astuffed toy is packed with cotton at a high density, and it isnecessary to present a very high output power in order tostretch them. For this reason, a motor with a high gear ratio isused to output a high torque, and the back drivability is small.
On the other hand, our proposal is a system which combines
the good point of both SPIDAR and NUIBOT. It is not a
stationary type but a wearable type haptic presentation systemusing an actuator consisting of a motor and low gear ratio withback drivability.
A. Haptic Primary Color Theory
Tactile sensation is based on information obtained fromhuman tactile sensors and is a type of human somatosensory
sensation. The Haptic Primary Colors (HPCs)[9] is a theory
that tactile sensing is composed by elements of tactile
stimulus. It is the same as the three elements of light. In the
primary colors of light theory, human visual cells accept realworld landscapes as three wavelengths. In the same way, thecamera records images in three colors. A real-world
landscape is reconstructed using a display that projects therecorded three-primary colors of light. In the HPCs theory,
vibration, force, and temperature correspond to tactile
sensation receptors and thermal sensation receptors. Tactile
receptors that accept mechanical stimulation include
Meissner corpuscles, Pacinian corpuscles, Merkel’s cell, andRuffini ending. The vibration detection area curve has anopen U or V shape as a whole, and has a minimum thresholdof about 0.1 μm in amplitude around the vibration frequencyof 250 Hz. Experiments have been conducted to measure thevibration detection area by sinusoidal vibration stimulation
ranging from about 1-500 Hz for the measurement of theskin-vibration detection area[10]. As tactile information, it isnecessary to measure mechanical vibrations of about 1 kHz
stimulus. The force is sensed on muscle, tendon, and joints asa deep sensation. The vibration is like the alternating current
component, the force is like the direct current component,
thus both vibration and force is needed. The frequent neuralfiring of temperature receptors at 40 - 45℃ in warm sensation
and at about 30℃ in cold sensation. The configuration of
haptic presentation based on the haptic primary color

XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEEUSB ISBN 978-1-7281-4898-4, IEEE Catalog number CFP19MCR-USB

D2-2-1

principle needs to be a display corresponding to thecharacteristics of those haptic perception.

Since a magnet is attached to the pulley, the rotation can

II. WEARABLE DEEP SENSORY PRESENTATION DEVICEWe designed a wearable deep sensory presentation device[11] that stimulates deep sensation in the finger joints. Fig.
1 shows how a deep sense presentation device is attached
to a finger.

(a)System configuration
USB/UART

PC
Fig. 1. Wearable deep sensory presentation device.
USB

Fig. 1. Wearable deep sensory presentation device.

A. Force presentation mechanism
We describe a haptic device that stimulates deep sensationthat we propose. In order to present force, a sticky gel pad
was attached to a fingertip. When a thread sewn to the gel
pad is drawn by motor force, deform the fingers initially. It
stimulates the deep sensation inside the finger joint by anadditional further force presented. The gel pad is worn arounda finger from the side, top, and the other side. When a thread
is pulled, as shown in Fig. 3(b), the finger skin is deformed.
When a thread is pulled up, as shown in Fig. 3(b), the skin of
the side finger is also pulled up. It gives tension force on thefingerpad. The applied force feels like a virtual force. Whenthe force increases furthermore, beyond the range of skindeformation, the fingertip is pulled up. At this time, deep
sensation is stimulated. Thus, continuous force presentationfrom skin deformation(tactile) to deep sensation(haptic) is
enabled.
In order to realize continuous force presentation, theproposed device consists of a gel pad, a thread, thread passing
column, DC motor for winding thread. The system
configuration diagram is shown in Fig.2.
The gel pad covers both sides of the fingertip and nail of thefinger without covering fingerpad (Fig.3). A thread is sewnof the gel pad attached on the fingernail. The other end of
thread wound up by a pulley attached to a motor mounted on
the back of the hand. In the path to the fingertips, the thread
passes through the threading column mounted on the gel pad.
The threading column was designed by CAD according to theshape of the finger and printed with nylon material. A small
DC motor(Micro Metal Gearmotor HP 6V, gear ratio 10:1,
Pololu Robotics & Electronics)[12] with back drivability wasused to drive.
B. System Configuration
Fig.4 shows the driver board. In the driver board, PIC32
MM0064 GPL036 was used. It sends a command from thePC via UART (asynchronous serial communication) tocontrol the motor. In response to the command from the PC,
the control target is obtained, the sensor information isreturned, and the motor is controlled.

DC
motor

force

haptic(force)/deep sensation

vibration
vibrotactile(vibration)
temperature / temperaturethemaltactile unit(b)

Fig. 2. (a) presentation device overview(including gelpad, threadthroughout column, DC motor, driver board) (b)System
configuration.

stringmore
tensile force
stimulatedeep
sensation

tensileforce

gel pad（sticky）
finger(a)virtual(tentioned)pressure(b)(c)

Not covered fingerpad(d)Fig. 3. Mechanism of force presentation. (a) before force presentation,(b)force presented in both side of a finger then the tactile stimulus ispresented on fingerpad, (c)deep sensation is stimulated when the pullup force increased, (d) actual device front viewFig. 4. Driver board (35mm✕20mm✕2.8mm)

be measured. By controlling the rotational speed of the pulley,
position control is possible. In addition, the motor driver has
a current measurement function and has two DRV8833

D2-2-2

(Texas Instruments) that can perform PWM control of up to
10.8V and 1.5A at two circuits. The thread thickness wasused No. 0.8 (4.8 kg). Because of the consideration of safety,
the force that human fingers can exert is estimated to be about
5 kg.
C. Finger Posture Sensing
Measurement of finger posture is performed by Leap
Motion[13]. The proposed haptic device could present
texture in a VR simulator when the texture would be prepared.
The Fig. 5 shows how Leap Motion is used to sense thebending of a finger while wearing a deep sensation
presentation glove. Since the proposed glove does not
significantly change the shape of the hand, it does notinterfere with the measurement of the finger's posture using
such a contactless sensing device and has an affinity with thehand gesture input device.

Finger posture result
VR cubeLeap Motion

Fig. 5. Interaction with VR simulator could be possible by sensing
finger posture by Leap Motion. The user can touch a VR hard rubbersponge (left, blue object) and a urethane sponge (right, green object).

Technology based on Haptic Primary Colors” . A
compact version of the vibrating actuator (forcereactor TM AF
series) provided by Alps Electronics is embedded inside thedevice. A Peltier element (KSMH029F KELK Ltd.) [16] ismounted on the top of the device. A haptic presentation
corresponding to the tactile primary colors is possible.
III. EVALUATION
A. Force control
The deep sensation presentation device proposed in this paperis capable of force control and can apply force from weak tostrong. The Fig. 8 shows the movement of the finger whenpresenting a weak force (torque:7u), and a strong
force(torque:10u). When a strong force is presented, it can beseen that the finger joints are under force. When a large force
was applied (Fig.8 right), the index finger moved in reaction
against the presented force. The thumb moved together. Sucha reaction has not occurred in the presentation of weak force(Fig. 8 left). As described above, it can be confirmed that thepresented force was adjusted by observing the frame-byframe moving image. The Fig.5 shows an application
example to demonstrate two different softness material
experience. The blue VR object has three times hardness than
the green one. The presentation force is calculated by the
spring-damper model when the finger collides on the surfaceof objects.
torque 7

torque 10

torque 7

torque 10

torque 7

torque 10

D. Composition of tactile primary colors presentation glove
From the above, by combining the vibration-thermal tactile
unit (Fig. 6)[14][15] with a glove (Fig.7) capable ofpresenting tactile force and deep sensation, it becomes
possible to present three haptic primary colors of force,
vibration, and temperature. The vibro-thermal tactile unit wasdeveloped by JST ACCEL project on “Embodied Media

Fig. 6. vibro-thermal tactile unit

Fig. 8. left: frame-by-frame playback of finger movement when weakforce is applied (torque 7), right: when strong force is applied (torque10)

Comparison with other methods

Fig. 7. Interaction with VR simulator is possible by sensing finger
posture by Leap Motion

A tactile display Gravity Grabber(GG)[17] has been
proposed capable of presenting pressure and shear forces by
locating two DC motors at the fingertips, taking up the beltby the pulley attached to the motor and pressing the belt
against the finger pad. The GG is a compact system that canbe attached to the finger, as it can provide tactile sensation by
tightening the belt round around the fingertips. GG
specializes in the presentation of vibration and pressure
among haptics. However, GG is not a device aiming topresent the deep sensation for the finger joints. In addition, it

D2-2-3

is not suitable for presentation of softness. It is basicallydifficult for the belt to present fluctuations in the contact area.
Since the belt covers the finger pad. Tajima et al. [18]constructed a tactile primary color display by combining avibro-thermal tactile unit and a tablet, but the vibro-thermal
tactile unit was attached to the GG belt. The similar problem
was lying that difficult to display softness. In addition, theyused thread-driven tablets for presenting deep sensation, but
it was a station-type haptic device.
There are studies[19][20] that enable tactile presentation
using the array of electrodes on the finger pad. It can present
pressure sense (e.g. softness), vibration sense. In addition,
there is a proposal[21] which stimulates a deep sensation of
finger by myoelectric stimulation to a finger muscle.
Neither method aims at the coexistence of both the tactile
presentation to a fingertip and the force presentation to thedeep sensation in a finger joint. In addition, the contact areaof the finger pad cannot be changed in principle. In our
proposed method, tactile presentation is achieved byadjusting the tension on the finger pad by applying a force tothe sides of the finger without covering the finger pad. In
addition, since the displacement component of force can bepresented to deep sensation in the finger joint, it has anadvantage in presenting softness. In any case, in addition to
the haptic presentation technique, another force presentation
method was required for deep sensory presentation. The
proposed method is also advantageous in that continuous
haptic sensation can be presented from tactile to deep
sensation without adding a separate presentation mechanism.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank all the ACCEL project member. This
work was supported in part by a grant from JST ACCEL“Embodied Media Technology based on Haptic Primary Colors”.

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

IV. LIMITATION AND FUTURE WORK
Acquiring method of the finger posture using a depth
camera has an advantage at acquiring a global position forrealizing interaction with a VR object. However, the latency
occurs because the refresh rate is slow in the current setting.
Delay needs to decrease for the vivid haptic presentation. In
order to present the low latency tactile, it is considered that it
would be better to acquire the length of the thread and feed
the force back immediately when the collision to the VR
object occurred. This could be a more accurate measurement
system to acquire finger posture. The future challenge is toimprove the quality of force presentation by combining adepth-sensing camera and a measurement system of finger
posture by a thread length.
V. CONCLUSION
In this article, we have proposed a haptic presentation device
that is capable of presenting force from tactile to deep
sensation. Compared with the similar tactile presentation
method, the conventional system only presented a tactile ordeep sensation but the proposed haptic device present
continuously from tactile to deep sensation such as finger
joint tendon. We also showed that it is possible to present
multiple softness to the finger. With our system, sensing of
the finger posture is achieved using a depth-sensing camera.
It is capable that combine the proposed haptic device and thevibro-thermal tactile unit to display Haptic Primary Colors.

[9]

[10]
[11]

[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]

[16]
[17]
[18]

[19]

[20]
[21]

“Oculus touch.” [Online]. Available: https://www.oculus.com/.
F. Kimura, A. Yamamoto, and T. Higuchi, “Development of a 2DOF Softness Feeling Display for Tactile Tele-Presentation ofDeformable Surfaces,” 2010 IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., pp.
1822–1827, 2010.
A. Moscatelli et al., “A change in the fingertip contact area
induces an illusory displacement of the finger,” Lect. Notes
Comput. Sci. (including Subser. Lect. Notes Artif. Intell. Lect.
Notes Bioinformatics), vol. 8619, pp. 72–79, 2014.
J. K. Salisbury and M. A. Srinivasan, “Phantom-based haptic
interaction with virtual objects,” IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl.,
vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 6–10, 2006.
S. Martin and N. Hillier, “Characterisation of the Novint Falcon
Haptic Device for Application as a Robot Manipulator,”
Australas. Conf. Robot. Autom., pp. 1–9, 2009.
S. Nakagawara, H. Kajimoto, N. Kawakami, S. Tachi, and I.
Kawabuchi, “An encounter-type multi-fingered master handusing circuitous joints,” Proc. - IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom.,vol. 2005, no. April, pp. 2667–2672, 2005.
K. Akahane, Y. Koike, S. Hasegawa, and M. Sato, “A proposal ofa high definition haptic rendering for stability and fidelity,” Proc.
- 16th Int. Conf. Artif. Real. Telexistence - Work. ICAT 2006, pp.
162–167, 2006.
S. Zile, Guo and Dakal, Binod and Li, Haoyan and Nishino,
Tomoka and Mitake, Hironori and Hasegawa, “Nuibot : Motion
Control System and Visual Programming Environment for String
Driven Soft,” pp. 7–9.
S. Tachi, K. Minamizawa, M. Furukawa, and C. L. Fernando,“Haptic Media: Construction and Utilization of Humanharmonized ``Tangible’’ Information Environment,” 2013 23rd
Int. Conf. Artif. Real. Telexistence, pp. 145–150, 2013.
S. Tachi, M. Sato, and M. Hirose, Virtual Reality. The Virtual
Reality Society of Japan, 2011.
F. Kato, Y. Inoue, and S. Tachi, “A haptic glove to display
softness by stimulating deep sensation,” IEEE World Haptics
Conf. hands-on-demo, 2019.
“Pololu Robotics & Electronics.” [Online]. Available:
https://www.pololu.com/product/999.
“Leap Motion.” [Online]. Available:
https://www.leapmotion.com/.
“Tachi_Lab - ACCEL Project.” [Online]. Available:
https://tachilab.org/accel_project.html.
M. Nakatani et al., “A novel multimodal tactile module that can
provide vibro-thermal feedback,” Lect. Notes Electr. Eng., vol.
432, pp. 437–443, 2018.
“ＫＥＬＫ Ltd.” [Online]. Available:
http://www.kelk.co.jp/thermo/index.html.
K. Minamizawa, “Gravity Grabber : Wearable Haptic Display topresent Virtual Mass Sensation,” pp. 3–6.
Y. Tajima, F. Kato, Y. Inoue, and S. Tachi, “Tactile Sensation
Reproducing Method of a Haptic Display that Presents Force,
Vibration, and Temperature as Haptic Primary Colors,” J. VirtualReal. Soc. Japan, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 125–135, 2019.
S. Takei, R. Watanabe, R. Okazaki, T. Hachisu, and H. Kajimoto,“Presentation of softness using film-type electro-tactile display
and pressure distribution measurement,” Lect. Notes Electr. Eng.,
vol. 277, pp. 91–96, 2015.
H. Kajimoto, “Feeling of Lateral Skin Deformation with ElectroTactile Display *,” no. June, pp. 2–3, 2017.
E. Tamaki, Miyaki, and Rekimoto, “PossessedHand: Techniques
for controlling human hands using electrical muscles stimuli,”
Proc. CHI 2011, pp. 543–552, 2011.

D2-2-4

D2-2-5