Details of a Researcher - Minamizawa, Kouta

Papers - Minamizawa, Kouta

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ThermalBracelet: Exploring Thermal Haptic Feedback Around the Wrist

RL Peiris, YL Feng, L Chan, K Minamizawa

Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems … (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings) 2019

ISSN 9781450359702

© 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. Smartwatches enable the wrist to be used as an ideal location to provide always-available haptic notifications as they are constantly worn with direct contact with the skin. With the wrist straps, the haptic feedback can be extended to the full space around the wrist to provide more spatial and enhanced feedback. With ThermalBracelet, we investigate thermal feedback as a haptic feedback modality around the wrist. We present three studies that lead to the development of a smartwatch-integratable thermal bracelet that stimulates six locations around the wrist. Our initial evaluation reports on the selection of the thermal module configurations. Secondly, with the selected six-module configuration, we explore its usability in real-world scenarios such as walking and reading. Thirdly, we investigate its capability of providing spatio temporal feedback while engaged in distracting tasks. Finally we present application scenarios that demonstrates its usability.

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Prosthetic Tail: Artificial Anthropomorphic Tail for Extending Innate Body Functions

J Nabeshima, MHD Saraiji, K Minamizawa

Proceedings of the 10th Augmented Human International Conference 2019, 36 (The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers) 2019 ( 0 ) 1P1 - H07 2019

<p>For most mammals and vertebrate animals, tail plays an important role for their body providing variant functions to expand their mobility, or as a limb that allows manipulation and gripping. In this paper, we propose an exploratory biomimicry-inspired anthropomorphic tail design to allow engineering and expanding human body functions. The proposed tail consists of adjacent joints with a spring-based structure to handle shearing and tangential forces, and allow managing the length and weight of the target tail. The internal structure of the tail is driven by four pneumatic artificial muscles providing the actuation mechanism for the tail tip. Here we describe the design and implementation process, and highlight potential applications for using such prosthetic tail.</p>

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MusiArm: Extending Prosthesis to Musical Expression

K Hatakeyama, MHD Saraiji, K Minamizawa

Proceedings of the 10th Augmented Human International Conference 2019, 29 2019

Altered pinna: exploring shape change of pinna for perception and illusion of sound direction change

K Shirota, RL Peiris, K Minamizawa

Proceedings of the 23rd International Symposium on Wearable Computers, 220-224 (Proceedings - International Symposium on Wearable Computers, ISWC) 220 - 224 2019

ISSN 9781450368704

© 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. This study demonstrates that by opening and closing the human pinna, we can change the direction of sound perceived by humans. Each ear was independently transformed into a 100% open, 50% open, and 100% closed state, and all 9 combinations of these ear transformations were tested to evaluate the perceived direction of the sound output from 7 speakers placed 180 degrees around the subject. We demonstrate that by deforming the pinna, we could change the perception of the direction of sound, or make it illusory. We also found that except for 1 out of 7 speakers (or directions of sound), closing 100% of the ear on the side of the speaker where the sound is coming from and 50% of the ear on the other side of the speaker tends produce the most alteration to the perceived direction of sound.

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Arque: artificial biomimicry-lnspired tail for extending innate body functions

J Nabeshima, MHD Saraiji, K Minamizawa

ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Emerging Technologies, 8 2019

Multi-modal Design to Promote Social Engagement with Dementia Patients

E Czech, M Shibasaki, K Tsuchiya, R Peiris, K Minamizawa

2019 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC), 43-48 (2019 IEEE World Haptics Conference, WHC 2019) 43 - 48 2019

ISSN 9781538694619

© 2019 IEEE. Haptic technologies applied as a means of fulfilling the social needs of dementia patients is an unexplored area of research. Patients with dementia face many limitations that prevent them from engaging with others. For example, as dementia progresses, it becomes more difficult to communicate verbally. We propose a multi-modal system that is personalized and incorporates both active and passive haptic elements can bridge the communication gap between verbal and non-verbal communicators and improve interpersonal relationships. We applied a community-centered design methodology to develop our technological solution so that it would be functional and appropriate for our target audience. We tested our solution, a book which incorporated haptic technologies, with our target audience, and our preliminary analysis of their feedback suggests that there are many opportunities in which multimodal systems can be used to improve the social engagement of dementia patients.

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Synchronized Running: Running Support System for Guide Runners by Haptic Sharing in Blind Marathon

T Hirano, J Kanebako, MHDY Saraiji, RL Peiris, K Minamizawa

2019 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC), 25-30 (2019 IEEE World Haptics Conference, WHC 2019) 25 - 30 2019

ISSN 9781538694619

© 2019 IEEE. Blind marathon is a sport where visually impaired people can run with sighted guides in pairs. In this paper, we present an assistant system for blind marathon runners called "Synchronized Running" that improves the guidance experience for the runners. Our proposed system allows both runners to match their running tempo and synchronize with each other, similar to a three-legged race case, without any direct physical attachment. Two modules are located on the ankle of both runners, that measure the acceleration of the visually impaired runner, and provide haptic feedback to the guide's ankle according the tempo of the running pace. This synchronization allows the guide to grasp a comfortable running pace towards the visually impaired person, allowing seamless running communication between both runners. The evaluation results indicate that our system encourage runners (primarily novice guides) to achieve comfortable guidance running experience toward the blind runners.

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