JP5057285B2 - Tactile visual expression method and tactile visual expression device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a tactile visual expression method and a tactile visual expression device capable of visually expressing tactile information.

  Among human senses, visual, auditory, and tactile sensations are important senses that connect machines and humans, or humans and humans that exist in remote places. Image and sound processing technologies that correspond to vision and hearing are rapidly spreading as interfaces with the development of information and communication engineering, and are indispensable as industrial basic technologies. For example, the invention of photography, television, telephones, phonographs, etc. enabled the transmission, storage, and playback of information related to vision and hearing, and the broadcasting of vision and hearing information was also possible using video cameras and televisions. . This is equivalent to making the human sense of vision and hearing transcend time and space. Currently, the development of digital signal processing technology that handles the analysis and processing of such visual and auditory information is progressing day by day.

  On the other hand, tactile information, which is one of sensory information, is required to be developed as a new multimedia information next to visual and auditory information, transmitted and stored, and artificially reproduced. Therefore, remote control between the robot system by the master system and slave system, and the haptic (tactile) display that displays the moving position and various information at the position through the tactile sense are technologies for handling tactile information. A lot of research has been done.

  However, the visual and auditory information described above is passive and unidirectional sensory information, whereas tactile information is bidirectional sensory information that is bound by the “law of action and reaction” in the real world. Yes, the information can be obtained for the first time by actively touching the environment that is the object of contact, so the haptic information is reproduced using the model base and virtual reality, but the haptic information in the real world has been reproduced. Acquisition is difficult.

  As a real world haptic for extracting and reproducing tactile information in the real world, for example, Non-Patent Document 1 proposes a control method for bilateral force feedback from a remote place in the real world. Another non-patent document 2 proposes a multilateral tactile transmission technology that enables the exchange of haptic information between multidirectional systems.

As described above, various researches have been conducted on the extraction and reproduction of tactile information in the real world. The technology for visually expressing the acquired tactile information is in the fields of production engineering and minimally invasive surgical medicine. Although it is desired, it has not been developed and has not been put into practical use. For example, as a technique for visually expressing tactile information, it is conceivable to display data obtained by a force sensor or a reaction force estimation observer proposed in Non-Patent Document 3 in chronological order. In some cases, the evaluation can be made only with a qualitative expression such as “smooth” or “rough” in the contact environment. Therefore, as a basic concept for handling tactile information in the real world having bidirectionality, there has been a demand for an apparatus and method that can more intuitively and quantitatively evaluate tactile information.
Satoshi Shimono, Seiichiro Katsura, Hiroshi Onishi (T. Shimono, S. Katsura, K. Ohnishi), “Bilateral Motion Control for Reproduction of Real World Force Sensation based on the Environmental Model ”, IEEJ Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 126-D No. 8 (Vol.126-D, No.8), pp. 1059-1068, August 2006 (August, 2006) Seiichiro Katsura, Yuichi Matsumoto, Hiroshi Onishi (S. Katsura, Y. Matsumoto, K. Ohnishi), “Realization of“ Law of Action and Reaction ”by Multilateral Control” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol.52, No.5 (Vol.52, No.5), pp. 1196–1205, October 2005 (October, 2005) Toshiyuki Murakami, Minakata Tsuji, Hiroshi Onishi (T. Murakami, F. Yu, K. Ohnishi), “Torque Sensorless Control in Multidegree-of-freedom Manipulator” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 40 No. 2 (Vol.40, No.2), pp. 259-265, April 1993 (April, 1993)

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to provide a visual expression of haptics that can more intuitively and quantitatively express haptic information that could only be qualitatively expressed so far. It is to provide a method and a tactile visual representation device.

In order to solve the above problems, a visual expression method for tactile sensation according to the present invention acquires time-series force and position tactile information generated by a contact operation with an environment, and uses the acquired tactile information as a time domain. Analysis processing is performed in the position domain, and the result of the analysis process is a time domain analysis for converting the relationship between time and force included in the haptic information into frequency analysis data indicating the relationship between frequency and amplitude, and the frequency analysis. What frequency component characteristics are obtained at which position from the frequency analysis data obtained by analyzing the spatial domain in which the data is arranged in the space based on the surface shape of the environment Is visualized and displayed on a plurality of positions according to the surface shape of the environment on the display means at a degree of amplitude in a predetermined range of frequencies .

In this case, by a Fourier transform or a wavelet transform or a cosine transform tactile information of the acquired touch information and the acquired, preferably analysis in the time domain or the spatial domain.

  Further, it is preferable that a reaction force when the movable body comes into contact with the environment is estimated by a reaction force observer, and the tactile information of the force is obtained as an estimated reaction force value from the reaction force observer.

Corresponding to the above method, the visual expression device for tactile sensation according to the present invention includes means for acquiring tactile information of time series force and position generated by the contact operation with the environment, And processing means for performing analysis processing in the position region, and the analysis processing result by the processing means is visualized and displayed on the display means.

  In this case, the processing means generates frequency analysis data obtained by frequency analysis of the haptic information corresponding to a position as a result of the analysis processing. From the frequency analysis data, the position of the haptic information at which position It is preferable that the display means visualize and display whether such frequency characteristics are present.

  Further, it is preferable that the processing means analyzes the acquired tactile information in a time domain or a position domain by Fourier transform, wavelet transform, or cosine transform.

The apparatus according to the method and claim 4 the first aspect, the tactile information of the time-series force and position caused by the contact operation to the environment, instead of being directly simply chronologically display, tactile information Time domain analysis that converts the relationship between time and force included in the frequency into frequency analysis data that indicates the relationship between frequency and amplitude, and this frequency analysis data is placed in space based on the surface shape of the environment By analyzing the acquired tactile information in the time domain and the position domain, the analysis processing results are arranged in a positional manner. For example, the characteristic frequency of the tactile information is visualized by color and shading. Can be displayed on the display means. Therefore, tactile information that could only be qualitatively expressed as in the past can be expressed more intuitively and quantitatively through visualization display from the display means.

In particular , by generating frequency analysis data obtained by frequency analysis of the haptic information corresponding to the position from the acquired haptic information, it is possible to visualize on the display means what frequency characteristics the haptic information has at which position. It is possible to display the tactile information more quantitatively by visualizing the degree of the amplitude level, for example, by color or shading on a plurality of positions according to the surface shape of the environment. .

According to the method of claim 2 and the apparatus of claim 5 , the time domain of tactile information is obtained by adopting Fourier transform, wavelet transform, or cosine transform, which has been researched and developed in the fields of image and audio signal processing. It is possible to easily perform analysis processing in the position area.

  According to the method of claim 3 and the apparatus of claim 6, the reaction force generated by the contact operation with the environment can be estimated by the reaction force observer without using the force sensor as the force tactile information.

  Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. The embodiments described below do not limit the contents of the present invention described in the claims. In addition, all of the configurations described below are not necessarily essential requirements of the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows the functional configuration of an apparatus showing a preferred embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes an apparatus main body that converts tactile information acquired from the outside into visual information, and is constituted by, for example, a computer having an arithmetic processing function. The apparatus main body 1 includes an input unit 2 that is a unit that acquires tactile information of force and position at a certain time, and a processing unit 3 that analyzes the tactile information acquired by the input unit 2 in a time region and a position region, that is, a spatial region. When a storage unit 4 for storing the frequency analysis data of the obtained spatial each position in the processing means 3, a visual display means 5 such as a screen (display) and a printer, the drive of the linear motor 12 to be described later controls And a motor control means 6 for performing the configuration.

  Further, here, in order to extract reaction force information generated by the contact operation with the environment E, the shaft body 11 as a movable body that contacts the environment E and the linear motor 12 that moves the shaft body 11 in one direction are used. A detection means 14 that constitutes the actuator 13 and that monitors the position and acceleration of the linear motor 12 and thus the shaft body 11 is attached to the actuator 13 that converts energy into power, and the position detection signal obtained by the detection means 14 And the acceleration detection signal are transmitted to a position / acceleration integrated disturbance observer (PAIDO) 15 and a reaction force (estimation) observer 16 incorporated in the motor control means 6, respectively, and thereby the disturbance force received by the linear motor 12 The reaction force is estimated by the disturbance observer 15 and the reaction force observer 16 without using a force sensor. It is configured to. Thus, the motor control means 6 generates a current command signal that takes into account the estimated disturbance force obtained by the disturbance observer 15 and the estimated reaction force obtained by the reaction force observer 16, and sends this to the linear motor 12. It is like that.

  The input unit 2 may have any configuration as long as it can finally acquire tactile information on what position and what force is generated at a certain time and output it to the processing unit 3 at the subsequent stage. . In the force control system by the motor control means 6 described above, the force (reaction force) received when the shaft body 11 as a movable body that is movable by the linear motor 12 that is a driving source contacts the environment E that is a contact target, The input means 2 may take in information as to which position of the environment E the force is received from the reaction force observer 16 from a position detection means (not shown). In this case, the configuration may be such that the tactile information specifying the force and position at a certain time is acquired by using the time count of the time measuring means 2A provided in the input means 2. Further, instead of the estimated reaction force from the reaction force observer 16, the reaction force may be captured by a detection output from a force sensor attached to the actuator 13.

  As another example, an operation means 17 such as a keyboard or a mouse is connected to the input means 2, and each time-series force and position data input from the operation means 17 is directly used as tactile information. As another example, an external medium 18 that stores time-series force and position haptic information is connected to the input means 2, and the haptic information read from the external medium 18 is input to the input means 2. May be configured to capture. In this case, it is not necessary to incorporate the time measuring means 2A described above into the input means 2.

  Here, the tactile information required by the processing means 3 includes information on the force and position at the same time, and may be synchronized in time, or the force and position at different times. Each information may be included and may be asynchronous in time.

The processing unit 3 includes a time domain analysis unit 21 that analyzes the haptic information acquired by the input unit 2 in the time domain, and a spatial domain analysis unit 22 that analyzes the haptic information in the spatial domain. The time domain analysis unit 21 performs frequency analysis on the tactile information acquired by the input unit 2 in the time domain, and shows the relationship between time and force included in the tactile information, and the frequency indicating the relationship between frequency and amplitude (vibration level). if converted into analysis data may be any configuration. Such frequency analysis has been researched and developed in fields such as image and audio signal processing, and examples include a technique using fast Fourier transform (FFT) and wavelet transform. Therefore, the time domain analysis unit 21 in this embodiment, by using the conversion function by FFT or wavelet transform that incorporates performs analysis as time domain tactile information, the frequency analysis data obtained by extracting the characteristic frequency components It can be acquired.

  On the other hand, the space region analysis unit 22 performs numerical analysis by dividing the space region into small spaces, and a finite element method is well known as a method for realizing this. Therefore, the space domain analysis unit 22 of the present embodiment analyzes the tactile information extracted by dividing the real world space into small spaces by the built-in finite element method conversion function in the time domain, and the result is a two-dimensional space. It can be associated with a position in the real world space so that it can be projected onto the screen. Note that in the case of tactile information related to the position of one or more fixed points, the analysis by the space region analysis unit 22 may be omitted.

Processing means 3, and the analysis result of the time domain analysis unit 21, by integrating the analysis result of the spatial domain analysis unit 22 obtains the frequency analysis data corresponding to each position of the small space, which storage means 4 is stored. In this case, a configuration in which the space analysis by the space domain analysis unit 22 is performed following the frequency analysis by the time domain analysis unit 21, or a configuration in which the frequency analysis is performed following the space analysis. Furthermore, it is good also as a structure which performs a frequency analysis and a space analysis in parallel, and when a contact position is fixed and a space analysis is unnecessary, the structure of the space area analysis part 22 may be abbreviate | omitted.

  In addition, you may implement | achieve the same process means 3 by combining well-known various conversion functions which are shown here or are not shown here individually or in combination. For example, as a conversion function built in the time domain analysis unit 21, for example, Fourier transform other than FFT, wavelet transform, or cosine transform may be employed. The Fourier transform here includes a discrete Fourier transform, a short-time Fourier transform, and the like. The cosine transform is a discrete cosine transform that is a special discrete Fourier transform, a modified discrete cosine transform that is a method of the discrete cosine transform, and the like. including. The wavelet transform includes continuous wavelet transform and discrete wavelet transform.

  The processing means 3 reads out the frequency analysis data corresponding to each position stored in the storage means 4, visualizes the tactile information like a photograph, and displays it on the display means 5. It has a function as a display control means for controlling. A new expression technique for visualizing such tactile information will be described as “Haptograph”. The “haptograph” displayed by the display unit 5 performs frequency analysis such as fast Fourier transform or wavelet transform on the tactile information acquired by the input unit 2 and touches the shaft body 11, for example. By spatially arranging them based on the surface shape of the environment E, it is possible to indicate which frequency component amplitude level (spectrum) exists at which position in different colors and shades (gradations) according to the amplitude level. The display means 5 can be visualized.

  By the way, “Hapto” means “touch” in Greek and is named “Haptograph” because it visualizes the sense of touch like a photograph. The haptograph in the present embodiment is defined as the tactile information received from the surface of the environment E in contact with the haptic information arranged in a two-dimensional space. Of course, this arrangement may be one-dimensional or three-dimensional or more. By using a haptograph, tactile information can be visually perceived like a photograph or a figure, so that the tactile sense can be recognized more intuitively. In addition, frequency analysis of the tactile information is performed by the time domain analysis unit 21, and thereby the magnitude of the spectrum is visualized by, for example, color difference or shading, so that tactile sense can be quantitatively evaluated and compared.

  The number of spaces divided by the space region analysis unit 22 corresponds to pixels in the case of an image, and the number of divisions is the resolution of tactile information. Of course, if the number of divisions is large, it is possible to embed detailed tactile information, but the amount of data to be stored in the storage means 4 described later also increases. As one index, it is preferable to set the number of spaces to be divided by the space region analysis unit 22 in accordance with the resolution of the fingertip that most requires a tactile sensation. When a human receives two tactile stimuli on the skin, the shortest distance at which the stimuli can be identified as different points is said to be about 2.5 mm at the tip of an adult index finger. Although the space division method and the number of divisions are arbitrary, it is ideal from the viewpoint of human support to express the “hapt graph” by the display means 5 in a small space finer than the resolution of human touch. Furthermore, it is possible to create a haptograph by stroking the small space divided by the space region analysis unit 22 as a continuous line as well as a haptograph composed of discrete point sequences. .

  Next, based on the above configuration, each procedure of the tactile visual expression method in this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When the apparatus main body 1 is activated and the processing operation is started, the input unit 2 acquires tactile information to be sent to the subsequent processing unit 3 in step S2. For obtaining the tactile information, the contact operation in step S1 is performed first as necessary.

  Specifically, for example, in FIG. 1, in the configuration in which the actuator 13 is force-controlled by the motor control means 6, the linear motor 12 is driven by a current command signal from the motor control means 6, and the shaft attached to the linear motor 12 By bringing the body 11 into contact with the environment E, the contact operation in step S1 is performed. Also, here, the values of disturbance force and reaction force (external force) received by the linear motor 12 are estimated by a preferably position / acceleration integrated disturbance observer 15 and reaction force observer 16 provided in the motor control means 6, respectively. Then, the force of the linear motor 12 is controlled by these estimated values, and the estimated value of the reaction force received by the shaft body 11 is output from the reaction force observer 16 to the input means 2 as force information.

  Further, the contact position between the environment E and the shaft body 11 associated with the contact operation in step S1 may be detected by a position sensor (not shown) and output to the input means 2, or the contact position is known in advance. If there is, the input means 2 may capture the position information. For example, when the environment E or the shaft body 11 moves irregularly and the contact position cannot be determined, it is preferable that the input means 2 captures the detection output of the position sensor as position information. Conversely, for example, the environment E or the actuator 13 is attached to an XY table or the like, and the shaft body 11 is brought into contact with the environment E at a predetermined position by a control signal output from the motor control means 6 to the XY table. In this case, if the input unit 2 takes in position information using the control signal from the motor control unit 6, the position sensor can be made unnecessary. Further, when the shaft body 11 does not contact the environment E, for example, the tip position of the shaft body 11 may be taken in by the input means 2 as position information. In short, the position information is input together with the force information. As long as it is taken in.

  In step S2, the input means 2 uses the clock count of the built-in time measuring means 2A to acquire time-dependent changes in the captured force and position information as tactile information, and Associate. Incidentally, when time information is associated in advance with the information on the force and position taken into the input means 2, it can be acquired as it is as tactile information. Further, when the direct contact sense information is acquired from the operation means 17 or the external medium 18 instead of the detection means 14, the procedure of step S1 can be omitted.

  Thus, when tactile information is obtained in step S2, the time domain analysis unit 21 of the processing means 3 uses the time and force included in the tactile information, and this is analyzed using a frequency analysis method such as FFT or wavelet transform. The tactile information is analyzed as a time domain (step S3). When such frequency analysis is performed, frequency analysis data indicating what frequency characteristics it has can be obtained from information on force (reaction force) generated during a certain period.

  In the next step S4, the space domain analysis unit 22 of the processing unit 3 arranges the frequency analysis data obtained by the time domain analysis unit 21 in the space based on the surface shape of the environment E with which the shaft body 11 contacts. Perform spatial analysis. Specifically, when the contact position between the environment E and the shaft body 11 changes every moment, only frequency analysis data on the changed contact position is acquired simply by performing frequency analysis by the time domain analysis unit 21. I can't. Therefore, the frequency analysis data at the fixed position can be obtained by performing spatial analysis by the finite element method, for example, on the frequency analysis data obtained in step S3 by the spatial domain analysis unit 22.

  In the case where the contact position between the environment E and the shaft body 11 is fixed by the control signal from the processing means 3 and the force information is taken in from the detection means 14, the information on the contact position corresponding to the force information. Is provided from the input means 2 to the processing means 3, and the frequency analysis data obtained in step S3 and the contact position are associated with each other only by the time domain processing unit 21 without performing spatial analysis by the spatial domain analysis unit 22. be able to. And in this case, when each procedure of step S1-step S3 is complete | finished, in order to make the shaft body 11 contact-operate to another position of the environment E, by returning to the procedure of step S1, various fixed contact is carried out. Frequency analysis data at the position can be obtained. When obtaining frequency analysis data for only one position, the procedure of the next step S5 is performed without returning to the procedure of step S1.

  When the space region analysis unit 22 thus generates frequency analysis data corresponding to the position in the real space as the analysis processing result of the processing means 3, the analysis processing result is stored in the storage means 4 in the next step S5, and further this storage The analysis processing result is read out from the means 4, and the display control means provided in the processing means 3 displays the above-mentioned "hapt graph" on the display means 5, and the series of processing ends.

  Here, the display form of the display means 5 may be any form as long as it does not deviate from the concept of “haptograph”. For example, the degree of spectrum in a predetermined range of frequencies may be visualized by lines, colors, shading, etc. on one or more positions corresponding to the surface shape of the environment E. Alternatively, the frequency analysis data at fixed positions that are scattered may be interpolated with a straight line or the like, and may be continuously displayed in a mesh form. Furthermore, what kind of frequency component and what intensity spectrum is present at one determined position may be visualized and displayed by the display means 5 using a color or the like.

  As described above, in this embodiment, one or a plurality of fixed positions and time-series force tactile information are acquired by the input unit 2, and the tactile information acquired by the input unit 2 is acquired by the processing unit 3 in the time domain. And a method and apparatus for visualizing and displaying the analysis processing result obtained by the processing means 3 on the display means 5.

  This assumes the case where the environment E performs a contact operation at the same position, or the case where time-series force information about the same position is captured as tactile information from the operation means 17 or the external medium 18. In other words, the tactile information is not simply displayed in time series, but the acquired tactile information is subjected to analysis processing in the time domain. It becomes possible to make the means 5 perform. Therefore, tactile information that could only be qualitatively expressed as before can be expressed more intuitively and quantitatively through visualization display from the display means 5.

  In particular, if the tactile information here is only a single point and time-series force information corresponding to this position, what characteristic frequency the tactile information has at the same fixed position. It is possible to visualize on the display means 5 whether or not it has.

  Further, the analysis processing result from the processing means 3 in this case is obtained by generating frequency analysis data obtained by frequency analysis of the tactile information, and the frequency characteristics of the tactile information from the frequency analysis data are obtained. Is displayed and displayed on the display means 5.

  In this way, by generating frequency analysis data obtained by frequency analysis of the haptic information from the haptic information acquired by the input means 2, the frequency characteristics of the haptic information are visualized and displayed on the display means 5. By visualizing the degree of the amplitude level with, for example, color or shading, it becomes possible to express tactile information more quantitatively.

Also, when the contact position with the environment E moves regularly or irregularly, or when information of force in time series for each of a plurality of positions is acquired as tactile information from the operation means 17 or the external medium 18. The time-series force and position tactile information generated by the contact operation with the environment E is acquired by the input means 2, and the tactile information acquired by the input means 2 is processed by the processing means 3 in the time domain and the three-dimensional position. Analyzing processing is performed in a spatial domain, and the analysis processing result is obtained by analyzing the time domain by converting the relationship between time and force included in the tactile information into frequency analysis data indicating the relationship between frequency and amplitude, frequency analysis data, obtained by the analysis of the spatial region located in a space on the basis of the surface shape of the environment E, the analysis results obtained by the addition processing unit 3, the frequency analysis data which is arranged in a space Method from, or has a characteristic of any frequency component at any position, a plurality of on the position corresponding to the surface shape of the environment E, and displays visualized on the display unit 5 in the degree of amplitude at the frequency of the predetermined range It is preferable to employ a device.

In this case, the tactile information of the position and sequence of force when generated by the contact operation to the environment E, it not simply be chronologically displayed, the relationship between the time and the force that is included in the tactile information, frequency Analysis of the time domain to convert to frequency analysis data indicating the relationship between the amplitude and the amplitude, and analysis of the spatial domain in which this frequency analysis data is placed in space based on the surface shape of the environment By performing analysis processing in the spatial domain, it is possible to arrange the analysis processing results spatially and to cause the display means 5 to visualize and display, for example, the characteristic frequency of the tactile information by color and shading. . Therefore, tactile information that could only be qualitatively expressed as before can be expressed more intuitively and quantitatively through visualization display from the display means 5.

In particular , by generating frequency analysis data obtained by frequency-analyzing the haptic information corresponding to the position from the haptic information acquired by the input means 2, the display means 5 indicates what frequency characteristics are present at which position. It can be visualized and displayed, and the degree of amplitude level can be visualized in multiple positions according to the surface shape of the environment E, for example, by color and shading, so that tactile information can be expressed more quantitatively. become.

  Furthermore, the processing means 3 of the present embodiment analyzes the haptic information acquired by the input means 2 in the time domain or the spatial domain by fast Fourier transform, wavelet transform, or cosine transform, and in the spatial domain by transformation using the finite element method. Analyzing process. In other words, the Fourier transform, wavelet transform, or cosine transform, which has been researched and developed in fields such as image and audio signal processing, and the finite element method that is well known as a method for numerical analysis by dividing a spatial domain into small spaces By adopting, it becomes possible to easily perform analysis processing in the time domain and the spatial domain of tactile information.

In the present embodiment , the reaction force when the shaft 11 that is a movable body contacts the environment E is estimated by the reaction force observer 16, and the tactile information of the force is used as the reaction force estimation value from the reaction force observer 16. Have acquired.

  In this case, as force tactile information, the reaction force generated by the contact operation with the environment E can be estimated by the reaction force observer 16 without using a force sensor.

  In addition, in the present embodiment, a storage unit 4 for storing the analysis processing result from the processing unit 3 is provided, and the analysis processing result is visualized on the display unit 4 by reading the analysis processing result stored in the storage unit 4. To be displayed.

  In other words, the analysis processing result is not displayed on the display unit 5 as it is, but is temporarily stored in the storage unit 4 and then displayed on the display unit 5 so that the analysis processing result accumulated and stored in the storage unit 4 can be arbitrarily set. It is possible to read out and visualize this on the display means 5.

  In addition, when the time-series force information described above is information on the reaction force of the movable body (shaft body 11) that constitutes the force control system at a certain time, the shaft body 11 contacts the reaction force. Since various information such as rigidity, viscosity, and mass of the environment E to be processed is included, if the reaction force is analyzed in the time domain, the difference in the environment E in contact and the characteristics of the tactile information are displayed. Can be visualized and expressed.

  In addition, this invention is not limited to the said Example, A various deformation | transformation implementation is possible in the range of the summary of this invention.

  The “hapt graph” presented in the above example embeds both spatial and temporal information of haptics and makes it possible to visualize them (visualization). It is possible to express the sense of touch more intuitively and quantitatively instead of a typical expression. Further, the display means 5 and the display control means in the above embodiment may be arranged at a remote place by wired or wireless communication means such as the Internet or broadcast, and in that case, when delivering tactile information to the remote place, By sending the visualized information from the processing means 3, it is possible to share the sense of touch intuitively and quantitatively at any location. Furthermore, the “haptograph” proposed here leads to the formulation of standards for compression and storage format of information when the visualization display information is distributed from the processing means 3 to the display means 5, and its industrial application is It can be immeasurable.

1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a tactile visual expression device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure executed by the tactile visual expression device in FIG.

2 Input means (means for acquiring tactile information of time-series force)
3 Processing means 5 Display means 1 Single axis body (movable body)
16 Reaction force observer
21 Time domain analysis part
22 Spatial domain analysis

Claims (6)

Obtain tactile information of time-series force and position generated by the contact action to the environment ,
Analyzing the acquired tactile information in a time domain and a position domain,
This analysis processing result is a time domain analysis that converts the relationship between time and force included in the tactile information into frequency analysis data indicating the relationship between frequency and amplitude,
The frequency analysis data is obtained by analysis of a spatial region arranged on the space based on the surface shape of the environment,
From the frequency analysis data arranged in the space, the position of what frequency component has characteristics and the degree of amplitude at a predetermined range of frequencies on a plurality of positions according to the surface shape of the environment. tactile visual representation wherein the displaying visualized on the display unit in. By a Fourier transform or a wavelet transform or a cosine transform tactile information the acquired tactile visual representation method according to claim 1, wherein the analyzing process by the time domain or the spatial domain. Estimate the reaction force when the movable body contacts the environment with a reaction force observer,
Tactile information of the force, the tactile visual representation method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the obtaining as a reaction force estimate from the reaction force observer. Means for obtaining tactile information of time-series force and position generated by contact operation with the environment ;
Processing means for analyzing the acquired tactile information in a time domain and a position domain,
The processing means includes a time domain analysis unit that converts a relationship between time and force included in the tactile information into frequency analysis data indicating a relationship between frequency and amplitude, and the frequency analysis data is converted into a surface shape of the environment. And a space region analysis unit that obtains the result of the analysis processing, arranged in space based on
From the frequency analysis data arranged in the space, the position of what frequency component has characteristics and the degree of amplitude at a predetermined range of frequencies on a plurality of positions according to the surface shape of the environment. in tactile visual representation apparatus being characterized in that the arrangement for showing visualized images on the display means. The processing means, by a Fourier transform or a wavelet transform or a cosine transform the acquired touch information, tactile claim 4, wherein the is to analysis in the time domain analysis unit or the location area analyzer Visual expression device. A reaction force observer for estimating a reaction force when a movable body comes into contact with the environment;
Tactile information of the force, the fact that a configuration for acquiring a reaction force estimate tactile visual representation apparatus according to claim 4 or 5, wherein from the reaction force observer.

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