Through nonlinear effects, airborne ultrasound phased arrays enable mid-air tactile presentations, as well as auditory presentation and acoustic levitation. To create workplaces flexibly, we have developed a scalable phased array system in which multiple modules can be connected via Ethernet cables and controlled from a PC or other host device. Each module has 249 transducers and the software used can individually specify the phase and amplitude of each of the connected transducers. Using EtherCAT for communication, the system achieves high accuracy synchronization among the connected modules. In this article, we describe the details of the hardware and software architecture of the developed system and evaluate it. We experimentally confirmed the synchronization of 20 modules within an accuracy of $0.1~\mathrm{{\mu }s}$ and the phase and amplitude can be specified at $8~\mathrm{bits}$ resolution. In addition, using nine modules, we confirmed that we could make a focal point of the size consistent with the theory at $500~\mathrm{mm}$ above the array surface.

In this study, we achieved a noncontact tactile display that presents a pinpoint and instantaneous cooling sensation on the skin surface with no devices directly in contact with the user's body. We employed ultrasound phased arrays to generate a focused ultrasound, which locally and instantaneously expedites the vaporization of room-temperature water mist floating near the surface of the user's skin, offering a sudden pinpoint cooling sensation. In this article, we describe the physical configuration of the proposed method and show the measurement results, demonstrating how the user's skin surface was cooled. During the experiments, we discovered that a part of the skin exposed to a focused ultrasound within the floating mist was selectively cooled with negligible delay. Our prototype system offers a cooling spot of approximately 15 mm in diameter, which causes a temperature decrease of 4.6 K in 1 s and 3.3 K in the first 0.5 s on a hand situated 500 mm away from the device. Additionally, the ultrasound-driven cooling spot can be controlled on the skin surface, which is felt as a cool moving spot. Such a position-free cooling system with a high spatiotemporal resolution will open the door to unprecedented practical tactile applications.

Ultrasound emitted from an array of transducers can produce various tactile sensations by temporally controlling the phase and amplitude of the transducers. However, the controllability in haptic applications has not been well examined. This study clarifies a phase shift of the driving signal causes amplitude fluctuation of emitted ultrasound, even under a constant driving amplitude. We demonstrate theoretically that this problem exists in general resonant systems with various quality factors, and point out that it produces radiation force decrease and audible noise. We also show a method to reduce the fluctuation and quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness. The results provide the measure of the displayed force fluctuation by a fast focus movement and enable silent haptic stimulation.

Focused airborne ultrasound provides various noncontact spatiotemporal pressure patterns on the skin. However, the presentation of static force remains an untouched issue because the static radiation force by ultrasound is too weak for the human hand to perceive. Hence, creatable sensations have been limited to vibrations or some dynamically changing feelings. This study demonstrates that a non-vibratory pressure sensation is presented by low-frequency Lateral Modulation (LM) with a fine spatial step width. LM is a pressure modulation method that moves a single ultrasound focus laterally and repetitively along the skin surface. The produced sensation in this study was not perfectly static, but the vibratory perception contained in the stimulus was significantly suppressed under a condition while maintaining its intense perception. We found the condition was 5 to 15 Hz in the LM frequency with a motion step width of less than 1 mm. In a comparison test in the most vibration-suppressed case, the participants reported 0.21 N as an equivalent force to the LM stimulus, significantly higher than the 0.027 N force physically applied by the ultrasound. The statistical analysis also showed that the step width of the LM had a significant effect on its vibratory sensation but not on the intensity of the evoked pressure sensation.

Recently, the applications of airborne ultrasound technology have garnered considerable attention; however, high-speed ultrasound field measurements in air have not been well researched. This study demonstrates that thermal responses to high-intensity airborne ultrasound can be used to visualize airborne ultrasound fields. Thermal images on a mesh screen enable the rapid quantitative measurement of two-dimensional ultrasound fields. Additionally, based on the temperature distribution on a surface that reflects ultrasound waves, it is possible to determine the ultrasound focus position with a resolution much finer than the wavelength. The results demonstrate that thermography observations based on ultrasound-temperature conversion, which are conventionally time-consuming or difficult to perform, can be used to visualize acoustic fields within 0.5 s. These findings will advance engineering applications that use strong airborne ultrasound, such as midair haptics and acoustic levitation, and provide scientific and technical applications for detecting surface properties and composition, including those of cells and fragile materials.