Perch on my arm! A haptic device that presents weight and a sense of being grabbed

Touching and felling physical objects has been an important method of understanding and communicating with others. Although most of the existing haptic devices are limited to the hand, arms are used in a daily basis to interact with other people and animals by linking, hugging or being grabbed. In attempt to realize interactions with a virtual character we propose a novel haptic device that can grab and provide pressure to the human arm. We have also created a system that utilizes two of these devices to virtually represent a bird perching on a person's arm. Unlike the approach of wearable devices [Sato et al. 2008], our system does not require attachment in advance, so as to make the experience intuitive. In addition, the users can feel different feedback according to their actions.