Abstract
Vision is the primary sensory modality humans use for navigation because it provides detailed, spatially organized environmental information. However, when visual input is degraded or unavailable, reliance must shift to alternative sensory modalities. This is a particular challenge in rescue diving, where turbid, low-visibility environments necessitate robust non-visual navigation solutions. Tactile cueing through vibrotactile haptic feedback offers a promising solution by enabling divers to receive intuitive spatial and navigational cues without placing additional strain on other sensory modalities. Despite this potential, current vibrotactile navigation systems are often unintuitive, convey limited spatial information, and have technical challenges such as latency, suboptimal actuator placement, and environmental constraints. At present, there are no widely adopted commercial vibrotactile navigation belts for divers. This gap highlights an opportunity to develop underwater tactile interfaces capable of supporting divers in low-visibility environments.
This research develops and empirically evaluates an underwater vibrotactile navigation belt designed to improve navigational efficiency, accuracy, and situational awareness (SA) during low-visibility diving. It addresses the limitations of existing vibrotactile systems with an intuitive, human-inspired cueing scheme informed by vibrotactile principles and SA theory, implemented on an off-the-shelf platform. The design was evaluated with a human subjects study with rescue diver participants. The insights resulting from this assessment informed the development and construction of an improved hardware and software system. This novel design reduced latency, enhanced vibration consistency, enabled customizable actuator placement, and improved reliability for underwater operation. The improvements of this refined implementation were validated with a second human subjects study. The outcomes of this work advance the development of intuitive, reliable, and context-adaptive underwater tactile navigation interfaces for visually constrained environments.
