Haptic Directional Instruction System for Sports

We proposed a new haptic instruction system for sports trainings that provides field players with instructed directions. The system consists of a stimulation unit (SU) for a player and an instruction unit (IU) for an instructor. Players wear the SU around their waist, and can recognize instructed directions by vibrations using 13 vibration actuators. The IU sends a direction where the joystick tilts to the SU via wireless communication modules. Preliminary experiments confirmed that the all participants did not feel the slipping away of the SU, and all participants were able to recognize its vibration even though they were running at 5, 10 km/h and standing (0 km/h). However, at 15 km/h, a participant who has a plump body recognized that a little or hardly recognized that at back part. We need to improve the method of providing stimuli at back part. By using the system, instructors and directors can provide the instructed directions to a field player without both any voice and gesture.