The haptic kymograph: a diagnostic tele-haptic device for sensation of vital signs.

The kymograph is device for measuring and presenting pressure-based signals, such as human heart beat and artery volume pressure. The Haptic Kymograph is a haptically-enhanced tele-medicine system which is used to acquire human vital signs and then to transform these signs into sensible, scalable and ubiquitous media so that a user can easily comprehend subtle and ambiguous signals in a remote place. In an experiment setup a patient's artery pressure pulse was captured at 200 Hz of sampling rate, transmitted via TCP/IP network, and replicated in a remote place using a PHANToM haptic device coupled with a real-time visual interface. In this paper we report our recent progresses in developing a low-cost input system, network interfaces and haptic replication of the human artery volume pulse signal.