Virtual reality aided assembly with directional vibro-tactile feedback

We introduce different approaches to user interface devices that provide directed tactile feedback to the user's hand. The basic idea is to enhance the user's six degrees of freedom of interaction within virtual or augmented environments by offering an additional three-dimensional tactile feedback as an immediate, directed response from the virtual world. We also describe the prototype systems TactilePointer and TACTool, which utilize vibro-motors, alarm buzzers, and piezo bend elements as actuators in combination with magnetic and optical tracking. The prototypes have been informally tested within collision sensitive virtual environments.

[1]  Grigore C. Burdea,et al.  Haptics issues in virtual environments , 2000, Proceedings Computer Graphics International 2000.

[2]  Robert D. Howe,et al.  Tactile Display of Vibratory Information in Teleoperation and Virtual Environments , 1995, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[3]  Norman I. Badler,et al.  A taxonomy and comparison of haptic actions for disassembly tasks , 2003, IEEE Virtual Reality, 2003. Proceedings..

[4]  W.J. Tompkins,et al.  Electrotactile and vibrotactile displays for sensory substitution systems , 1991, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[5]  Dong-Soo Kwon,et al.  Wearable master device using optical fiber curvature sensors for the disabled , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[6]  H. Harry Asada,et al.  Wet shape memory alloy actuators for active vasculated robotic flesh , 2003, 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.03CH37422).

[7]  A. Robin Forrest,et al.  Perceptualisation using a tactile mouse , 1996, Proceedings of Seventh Annual IEEE Visualization '96.

[8]  Shumin Zhai,et al.  What You Feel Must Be What You See: Adding Tactile Feedback to the Trackpoint , 1999, INTERACT.

[9]  Yong Wang,et al.  VADE: A Virtual Assembly Design Environment , 1999, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[10]  Bernd Fröhlich,et al.  The Responsive Workbench [virtual work environment] , 1994, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[11]  Paul J. Stewart,et al.  A haptic hybrid controller for virtual prototyping of vehicle mechanisms , 2002, Proceedings 10th Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems. HAPTICS 2002.

[12]  John Kenneth Salisbury,et al.  Haptic Rendering: Introductory Concepts , 2004, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[13]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms , 1997, CHI.

[14]  John Kenneth Salisbury,et al.  Phantom-Based Haptic Interaction with Virtual Objects , 1997, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.