Improved force perception through sensory substitution

Abstract The objective of the research presented in this paper was to study the capabilities of sensory substitution for force feedback, presented to the operator of a teleoperation system, through the tactile and auditory senses. Traditional bilateral force feedback or force reflection, which applies forces to a human operator's hand or arm muscles, while generally beneficial can be limited in the operator's ability to perceive small force values. Sensory substitution for force feedback was shown in this study to increase the operator's ability to perceive small forces by allowing an increase in the effective feedback gain without risking instability or impeding the operator's inputs to the system.