Electrical Stimulation of Nerve Bundles in the Lower Leg Generates Tactile Sensations on the Plantar and Dorsal Foot

Abstract

Tactile sensations in the feet play an important role in providing information about the ground. Since the tactile sensation perceived by the feet differs depending on the ground conditions during standing, tactile displays on the feet are essential for creating immersive virtual reality experiences. However, conventional tactile sensation displays have the limitation that a device must be attached to the location where a tactile sensation is presented. This limitation should be resolved because the feet are exposed to strong pressure to support human weight, and the tactile sensation caused by the presence of the device interferes with the original tactile sensation from the ground and detracts from the realism of the experience. Therefore, we propose multi-electrodes ankle nerve bundle electrical stimulation method, which can generate the distribution of tactile sensations on the plantar and dorsal surfaces of the foot by placing electrodes on the ankle. We confirmed the validity of the electrode placement of the proposed method through finite element simulation. In addition, we conducted a user study including 21 participants and confirmed that the proposed method selectively presents tactile sensations in three different areas of the dorsal foot, medial plantar foot, and lateral foot.

Keywords

• Electrical nerve stimulation
• tactile sensation
• virtual reality
• finite element method
• user study