Development of a Wearable Vibrotactile Feedback Suit for Accelerated Human Motor Learning

When a human learns a new motor skill from a teacher, they learn using multiple channels: They receive high level information aurally about the skill, visual information about how another performs the skill, and at times, tactile information, from a teacher's physical guidance of the student. This research proposes a novel approach, the application of this tactile feedback through a robotic wearable system, while a student tries to learn from a teacher. Initial tests on a 5-DOF robotic suit show a decrease in motion errors of over 20%, and an accelerated learning rate of 7%, both conservative given the system setup and statistically very significant (p les 0.01). This research is intended in use of sports training, motor rehabilitation after neurological damage, dance, postural retraining for health, and many other contexts.