Biometric Perception Interface

Collaboration with Jing Yan, Yin Yu - Soft Robotics, Wearable, Social VR, 2018

The concept of biometric perception interface originates in a search for an alternative to the optical reception of data representation - an overused technique employed by people to analyze and predict states and changes in body. Diverting from the habit brought by the spectacular society of seeing and understanding, biometric perception interface challenges the common practices of visual memory and quantified abstraction of biological phenomena. As an extended method to foreground perception of information beyond visual paradigm, a set of biomorphic designs of soft robotic prosthetics is proposed here to define a new human-machine interface that converts biometric data into real-time haptic experience.

Hardware Interface & Design

The devices we are showing combine nature-inspired artificial organs, soft-robotic wearables, and biometric data apparatus with input and output elements. We present captured patterns of pulse and breath as the key evidence of being alive, and allow users to directly feel these volatile biometric signals via on-body air pneumatic simulations. Our system also demonstrates the possibility to physically link multiple users, suggesting an intimate but distant way of communication without direct skin contact. We name this new mode of communication as Biometric Perception, associated with a hardware interface design of three interconnected components: Choker, Antenna, and Memorizer.