Too Hot to Handle: An Evaluation of the Effect of Thermal Visual Representation on User Grasping Interaction in Virtual Reality

Influence of interaction fidelity and rendering quality on perceived user experience have been largely explored in Virtual Reality (VR). However, differences in interaction choices triggered by these rendering cues have not yet been explored. We present a study analysing the effect of thermal visual cues and contextual information on 50 participants' approach to grasp and move a virtual mug. This study comprises 3 different temperature cues (baseline empty, hot and cold) and 4 contextual representations; all embedded in a VR scenario. We evaluate 2 different hand representations (abstract and human) to assess grasp metrics. Results show temperature cues influenced grasp location, with the mug handle being predominantly grasped with a smaller grasp aperture for the hot condition, while the body and top were preferred for baseline and cold conditions

Pseudo-haptics survey: Human-computer interaction in extended reality & teleoperation

Pseudo-haptic techniques are becoming increasingly popular in human-computer interaction. They replicate haptic sensations by leveraging primarily visual feedback rather than mechanical actuators. These techniques bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds by exploring the brain’s ability to integrate visual and haptic information. One of the many advantages of pseudo-haptic techniques is that they are cost-effective, portable, and flexible. They eliminate the need for direct attachment of haptic devices to the body, which can be heavy and large and require a lot of power and maintenance. Recent research has focused on applying these techniques to extended reality and mid-air interactions. To better understand the potential of pseudo-haptic techniques, the authors developed a novel taxonomy encompassing tactile feedback, kinesthetic feedback, and combined categories in multimodal approaches, ground not covered by previous surveys. This survey highlights multimodal strategies and potential avenues for future studies, particularly regarding integrating these techniques into extended reality and collaborative virtual environments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Human-Robot Team Interaction Through Wearable Haptics for Cooperative Manipulation

The interaction of robot teams and single human in teleoperation scenarios is beneficial in cooperative tasks, for example the manipulation of heavy and large objects in remote or dangerous environments. The main control challenge of the interaction is its asymmetry, arising because robot teams have a relatively high number of controllable degrees of freedom compared to the human operator. Therefore, we propose a control scheme that establishes the interaction on spaces of reduced dimensionality taking into account the low number of human command and feedback signals imposed by haptic devices. We evaluate the suitability of wearable haptic fingertip devices for multi-contact teleoperation in a user study. The results show that the proposed control approach is appropriate for human-robot team interaction and that the wearable haptic fingertip devices provide suitable assistance in cooperative manipulation tasks

Haptic Exploration of Unknown Objects for Robust in-hand Manipulation.

Human-like robot hands provide the flexibility to manipulate a variety of objects that are found in unstructured environments. Knowledge of object properties and motion trajectory is required, but often not available in real-world manipulation tasks. Although it is possible to grasp and manipulate unknown objects, an uninformed grasp leads to inferior stability, accuracy, and repeatability of the manipulation. Therefore, a central challenge of in-hand manipulation in unstructured environments is to acquire this information safely and efficiently. We propose an in-hand manipulation framework that does not assume any prior information about the object and the motion, but instead extracts the object properties through a novel haptic exploration procedure and learns the motion from demonstration using dynamical movement primitives. We evaluate our approach by unknown object manipulation experiments using a human-like robot hand. The results show that haptic exploration improves the manipulation robustness and accuracy significantly, compared to the virtual spring framework baseline method that is widely used for grasping unknown objects

Haptic-Guided Teleoperation of a 7-DoF Collaborative Robot Arm With an Identical Twin Master

In this article, we describe two techniques to enable haptic-guided teleoperation using 7-DoF cobot arms as master and slave devices. A shortcoming of using cobots as master-slave systems is the lack of force feedback at the master side. However, recent developments in cobot technologies have brought in affordable, flexible, and safe torque-controlled robot arms, which can be programmed to generate force feedback to mimic the operation of a haptic device. In this article, we use two Franka Emika Panda robot arms as a twin master-slave system to enable haptic-guided teleoperation. We propose a two layer mechanism to implement force feedback due to 1) object interactions in the slave workspace, and 2) virtual forces, e.g. those that can repel from static obstacles in the remote environment or provide task-related guidance forces. We present two different approaches for force rendering and conduct an experimental study to evaluate the performance and usability of these approaches in comparison to teleoperation without haptic guidance. Our results indicate that the proposed joint torque coupling method for rendering task forces improves energy requirements during haptic guided telemanipulation, providing realistic force feedback by accurately matching the slave torque readings at the master side

SHARP: A System for Haptic Assembly and Realistic Prototyping

Virtual Reality (VR) technology holds promise as a virtual prototyping tool for mechanical assembly; however, several developmental challenges still need to be addressed before virtual prototyping applications can successfully be integrated into the product realization process. This paper describes the development of SHARP (System for Haptic Assembly & Realistic Prototyping), a portable VR interface for virtual assembly. SHARP uses physically-based modeling for simulating realistic part-to-part and hand-to-part interactions in virtual environments. A dual handed haptic interface for realistic part interaction using the PHANToM® haptic devices is presented. The capability of creating subassemblies enhances the application’s ability to handle a wide variety of assembly scenarios. Swept volumes are implemented for addressing maintainability issues and a network module is added for communicating with different VR systems at dispersed geographic locations. Support for various types of VR systems allows an easy integration of SHARP into the product realization process resulting in faster product development, faster identification of assembly and design issues and a more efficient and less costly product design process