Finger ring tactile interface based on propagating elastic waves on human fingers

We propose a new tactile device which measures several DOF vibrations propagating along the finger. The device can be used both as a tactile sensor and human-machine interface. In this paper, as a pilot experiment, we carried out experiments on the identification of contact positions by using 2 DOF vibrations. It was shown that with a 2-axis accelerometer placed on the backside of the proximal phalanx, tapping on distal phalanx and middle phalanx can be discriminated.