[Japanese]

Masahiro FURUKAWA, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Maeda Laboratory Department of Bioinformatic Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science & Technology, Osaka University [Osaka University - Researchers]

CiNet (Room #3A1, 1-4, Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan)

m.furukawa [at] ist.osaka-u.ac.jp / ORCID / Facebook / Twitter / Youtube

News

Professional Career

Oct. 2015, JST PRESTO Researcher (concurrently) 

Apr. 2014, Osaka University, Assistant Professor

Apr. 2011, Keio University, Graduate School of Media Design (KMD), Project Assistant Professor, Tachi Laboratory, JST-CREST "Haptic Media" Project (~ Mar. 2014)

Apr. 2010, Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science(PD) 

as Post Doctor (Kajimoto Laboratory, at Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, Department of Informatics,  The University of Electro-Communications)

Apr. 2009, Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science(DC2) as Doctoral Student (Inami Group, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University)

Membership of Academic Societies 

ACM / IEEE / Virtual Reality Society of Japan / Robotics Society of Japan / Human Interface Society

Reviewer

IEICE / IEEE VR / World Haptics / 3DUI / VRSJ / RSJ / HIS

Research Interest

Telexistence / Human Perception / Haptic Interface / Vection

Flying TELUBee (2014-) 

TEST FLIGHT SHOWREEL.

2014/4/21 added

Hiyoshi Jump (2014-) Collaborated with Unity

Available from Oculus VR Share (March 15, 2014~) 

2014/4/21 added

Haptic Tele-existence System TELESAR V (2011-)

Latest News about TELESAR V is here (Google Search in News Category)

2012/12/04 added

Vection Field (2010-)  

2011/05/05 16:45 added

Tactile Proximity Sensation Induced by Other’s Finger Movement above One’s Palm (2010)

It is widely known that tickle sensation is not only induced by direct contact but also induced by the gesture near the body surface. This phenomenon can be utilized for the remote communication as a way to present pseudo haptic sensation with visual cue. In this paper, this pseudo haptic sensation was combined with vibration and tickle sensation was evaluated. The result revealed that combination of vibration and the visual cue presenting the gesture near the body surface induces as strong tickle sensation as the real tickle.

see also [Project Page] 2011/05/13 13:30 added

Pedestrian Collision Prevention System (2010-)  

2011/03/11 16:50 added

Fur Display (2009)

Wearable computing technology is one of the methods that can augment the information processing ability of humans. However, in this area, a soft surface is often necessary to maximize the comfort and practicality of such wearable devices. Thus in this paper, we propose a soft surface material, with an organic bristling effect achieved through mechanical vibration, as a new user interface. We have used fur in order to exhibit the visually rich transformation induced by the bristling effect while also achieving the full tactile experience and benefits of soft materials. Our method needs only a layer of fur and simple vibration motors. The hairs of fur instantly bristle with only horizontal mechanical vibration. The vibration is provided by a simple vibration motor embedded below the fur material. This technology has significant potential as garment textiles or to be utilized as a general soft user interface.

Sensitivity of Human Hairy Skin with Vibrotactile Stimulation through Body Hair (2007)

This paper reports the detection threshold of human hairy skin with the use of a direct vibrotactile stimulus to the hair on human hairy skin. We designed an experimental method to quantify the psychological effect and developed a stimulation instrument to directly stimulate the hair. This vibrotactile stimulation was provided from the tip of tweezers which traveled horizontally or vertically against the human skin. The stimulation point was the approximate middle region of the hair on the middle finger and forearm. A psychological experiment was conducted based on the hypothesis that a frequency characteristic exists on hairy skin with direct stimulus to the hair. As a result, a significant difference depends on frequency was obtained with ANOVA. It was described that the vibrotactile stimulus was conducted to Pacinian by the body hair on the middle finger which has so small section area. This is conflicting finding concerning the size of the contactor which can conduct the stimulus into the lower layer of skin. However, this thresholdcurve and also the introspection reports of participants support this novel finding.

Awards

Journal (International only)

Conference Paper (International only)

Invited Talk (International only)

Exhibition

Press

Research Grants

Oct. 2015 - , JST PRESTO Researcher 

Apr. 2009 - May 2010, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)

July 2008 - May 2009, The University of Electro-Communication, Cadet Informatics Education Student Project Research

July 2007 - May 2008, The University of Electro-Communication, Cadet Informatics Education Student Project Research

Commission Member

Feb. 2014 - Secretary of Special Interest Group on Telexistence, VRSJ

Jan. 2012 - Committee Member of Special Interest Group on Telexistence, VRSJ

Dec. 2011 - Committee Member of Annual Conference, VRSJ

Feb. 2012 - Secretary Workshop for Haptic Display and Computation, VRSJ (-2014, Feb)

Apr. 2011 - Committee Member, Workshop for Haptic Display and Computation, VRSJ

Feb. 2011 - Committee Member, EC2011 

Jan. 2011 - Planning Committee, International Virtual Reality Contest

June 2009 - Newsletter Editorial Board, VRSJ

Apr. 2007 - Planning Committee Student Member, International Virtual Reality Contest

Apr. 2007 - Planning Committee Student Member, Interactive Tokyo 

Skills

Programming Languages

C/C++, Visual C++/C#, N88Basic, Visual Basic, OpenGL, OpenCV, DirectX, PIC, CCS, Assembler, HTML, Perl, C-shell, Objective-C, VHDL

OS

Windows, Unix, Mac 

Applications

After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, MS-Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Eagle, Rhinoceros, SolidWorks, MATLAB, MPLAB, SciLab, LaTeX, Max/MSP, Puredata, Unity, Inventor