Haptic Belt

As a group project for the course "Psychology of Human-Machine Interactions," a five-person team (of which I was a part) developed a design proposal for a haptic belt that interprets GPS signals to direct users along a pre-programmed path using haptic feedback. After studying existing personal guidance systems, we decided that a system that didn't use audio for navigational feedback woudl be most effective. Individuals with visual impairments already rely more heavily on their sense of hearing than non-impaired individuals, and there is evidence to suggest that auditory feedback isn't the most efficient method for delivering navigational instructions. Therefore, in this system, auditory feedback is limited to "operational feedback," which is simply the feedback required to operate the software (this would work similar to the way websites for the visually impaired work).

For navigation, GPS signals are sent to the haptic belt, and the portion of the belt closest to the direction of intended travel vibrates (using motors similar to those used in cellular phones). As the user rotates toward the vibration, the vibrations "move" twoard the center of the belt, until, once the user is oriented in the correct direction of travel, the vibrations stop. The following figures illustrate this from a top-view perspective, with the red circles representing motors on the belt and the green circle representing the vibrating motor. Once the user has rotated to the appropriate orientation (as shown in figure 3), the vibration stops.