An Overview of Wearable Haptic Technologies and Their Performance in Virtual Object Exploration.

We often interact with our environment through manual handling of objects and exploration of their properties. Object properties (OP), such as texture, stiffness, size, shape, temperature, weight, and orientation provide necessary information to successfully perform interactions. The human haptic perception system plays a key role in this. As virtual reality (VR) has been a growing field of interest with many applications, adding haptic feedback to virtual experiences is another step towards more realistic virtual interactions. However, integrating haptics in a realistic manner, requires complex technological solutions and actual user-testing in virtual environments (VEs) for verification. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent wearable haptic devices (HDs) categorized by the OP exploration for which they have been verified in a VE. We found 13 studies which specifically addressed user-testing of wearable HDs in healthy subjects. We map and discuss the different technological solutions for different OP exploration which are useful for the design of future haptic object interactions in VR, and provide future recommendations

Designing 3D scenarios and interaction tasks for immersive environments

In the world of today, immersive reality such as virtual and mixed reality, is one of the most attractive research fields. Virtual Reality, also called VR, has a huge potential to be used in in scientific and educational domains by providing users with real-time interaction or manipulation. The key concept in immersive technologies to provide a high level of immersive sensation to the user, which is one of the main challenges in this field. Wearable technologies play a key role to enhance the immersive sensation and the degree of embodiment in virtual and mixed reality interaction tasks. This project report presents an application study where the user interacts with virtual objects, such as grabbing objects, open or close doors and drawers while wearing a sensory cyberglove developed in our lab (Cyberglove-HT). Furthermore, it presents the development of a methodology that provides inertial measurement unit(IMU)-based gesture recognition. The interaction tasks and 3D immersive scenarios were designed in Unity 3D. Additionally, we developed an inertial sensor-based gesture recognition by employing an Long short-term memory (LSTM) network. In order to distinguish the effect of wearable technologies in the user experience in immersive environments, we made an experimental study comparing the Cyberglove-HT to standard VR controllers (HTC Vive Controller). The quantitive and subjective results indicate that we were able to enhance the immersive sensation and self embodiment with the Cyberglove-HT. A publication resulted from this work [1] which has been developed in the framework of the R&D project Human Tracking and Perception in Dynamic Immersive Rooms (HTPDI

Haptic perception of virtual spring stiffness using ExoTen-glove

This paper presents a study of haptic perception of virtual stiffness and the influence of visual feedback in virtual reality. In this study, a novel and lightweight haptic glove (ExoTen-Glove) based on Twisted String Actuation (TSA) system is presented and evaluated. This system has two independent TSA modules with integrated force sensors and small-size DC motors. ExoTen-Glove provides force feedback to the users during the execution of grasping virtual objects. The overall design, the controller and the preliminary experimental evaluation of the ExoTen-Glove have been shown in this paper. Different experiments have been performed in virtual reality environment using HTC VIVE headset with 2 degrees of freedom grasping tasks, squeezing a pair of virtual springs with the participant's thumb and index fingers. The aim of this study is to illustrate the benefit of using ExoTen-Glove to distinguish stiffness of a pair of virtual springs and the role of the visual feedback. The results show that the users use not only haptic cues but also use visual cues in detecting spring stiffness difference

Haptic perception of virtual spring stiffness using ExoTen-glove

\u3cp\u3eThis paper presents a study of haptic perception of virtual stiffness and the influence of visual feedback in virtual reality. In this study, a novel and lightweight haptic glove (ExoTen-Glove) based on Twisted String Actuation (TSA) system is presented and evaluated. This system has two independent TSA modules with integrated force sensors and small-size DC motors. ExoTen-Glove provides force feedback to the users during the execution of grasping virtual objects. The overall design, the controller and the preliminary experimental evaluation of the ExoTen-Glove have been shown in this paper. Different experiments have been performed in virtual reality environment using HTC VIVE headset with 2 degrees of freedom grasping tasks, squeezing a pair of virtual springs with the participant's thumb and index fingers. The aim of this study is to illustrate the benefit of using ExoTen-Glove to distinguish stiffness of a pair of virtual springs and the role of the visual feedback. The results show that the users use not only haptic cues but also use visual cues in detecting spring stiffness difference.\u3c/p\u3

Haptic Perception of Virtual Spring Stiffness Using ExoTen-Glove

This paper presents a study of haptic perception of virtual stiffness and the influence of visual feedback in virtual reality. In this study, a novel and lightweight hap- tic glove (ExoTen-Glove) based on Twisted String Actuation (TSA) system is presented and evaluated. This system has two independent TSA modules with integrated force sensors and small-size DC motors. ExoTen-Glove provides force feedback to the users during the execution of grasping virtual objects. The overall design, the controller and the preliminary experimental evaluation of the ExoTen-Glove have been shown in this paper. Different experiments have been performed in virtual reality environment using HTC VIVE headset with 2 degrees of freedom grasping tasks, squeezing a pair of virtual springs with the participant’s thumb and index fingers. The aim of this study is to illustrate the benefit of using ExoTen-Glove to distinguish stiffness of a pair of virtual springs and the role of the visual feedback. The results show that the users use not only haptic cues but also use visual cues in detecting spring stiffness difference.status: Published onlin