Add touch to anything. Get ready to be wowed.

Vibe is the Vibration Interface for Body Expansion and aims to:

- Enhance human senses through real-time haptic feedback.

- Provide an open Platform for developers to easily incorporate their designs

Try the Demo!

Device IP
Status: Not Connected
FRONT

Waveform
Triangle
Square
Sine

Magnitude
min

BACK

Waveform
Triangle
Square
Sine

Magnitude
min

LEFT

Waveform
Triangle
Square
Sine

Magnitude
min

RIGHT

Waveform
Triangle
Square
Sine

Magnitude
min


Interactive Demo


Check under the hood. There's plenty of magic.

Hardware

- Arduino UNO

- LilyPad Vibe Boards

- PWMs

- Xbee

Protocols

- Software API for developers

- Network Handshake for Xbee

- Forwarding protocol to communicate with each vibration module

Architecture

719x463 694x455 679x529

Competitive Analysis. Our possible competitors

672x419

High risk, high rewards. We've planned for everything.

Risk Mitigation Strategy
Discomfort Reduce the size of the vibration boards and intensity (They are small!)
Unfamiliar Feelings Create an intuitive calibration test.
Not Fashionable Create small, flat and flexible modules that are can be hidden under your normal clothing.
Power Consumption Distribute batteries across modules and use more power efficient vibrators.

Testing. We're optimizing our product before launching

Black Box Tests and Metrics

Power Up,
Power Down
  • Repeated power ups and downs, the system should work fine on every startup.
  • It is important that the system works the same way every time the system is stated.
  • Tests the ability of the system to gracefully power up and initiate the
    connection protocol.
  • Procedure
    • Plug in power on both source and body.
    • Connect source and body in network protocol (push both buttons)
    • Verify it can vibrate.
    • Unplug power from both source and body.
    • Repeat
Stress
  • Fire/change all actuators simultaneously.
  • Latency measured at computer side by response time of acknowledgement.
  • It is important that the user experience changes in vibration levels immediately,
    even when there is a heavy load of changes in intensity.
    ("Immediately" is defined as 300ms, which is in the same order of magnitude as
    network delay and human reaction time).
  • Procedure
    • Startup source system.
    • Flood source heavily with updates.
    • Startup body system.
    • Connect source and body.
    • Measure acknowledgement time.
    • Repeat
Connection Lost
  • Expect the system to attempt to restart gracefully.
  • If old connection no longer exists, then all actuators should shut down, and
    be prepared to initiate a new pairing.
  • Entering the correct state is critical, else the system might behave erratically
    or deadlock.
  • Procedure
    • Startup both system.
    • Move body system far away from source until connection is broken.
    • Move system back in.
    • Ensure system pairs up again and can start actuators.
    • Repeat
Battery Life
  • Run system on different loads until batteries run out.
  • Need to know that the system is able function for a certain minimum period of time.
  • Ensure system gives user an indication that battery is running low.
  • Need to guarantee the system will restart gracefully once the battery is replenished.
  • Procedure
    • Startup system.
    • Run stress test until battery runs out.
    • Record time.
    • Replenish battery.
    • Repeat

Meet the team. Four passionate HW+SW engineers.

140x140

Debjani Biswas

dbiswas@cmu.edu
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Jonathan Carreon

jcarreon@andrew.cmu.edu
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Torstein Strømme

tstroemm@andrew.cmu.edu
140x140

Xiao Bo Zhao

xiaoboz@andrew.cmu.edu

Don't take our word for it. Here's what critics say.

This is a game changer.

John Smith, New York Times

I felt touched.

Harry Q. Bovik, Carnegie Mellon University

We can't wait to play games designed with the Vibe!

Smith John, TechCrunch