Preservation of Cultural Heritage Using Virtual Reality Technologies and Haptic Feedback: A Prototype and Case Study on Antique Carpentry Tools

Over the last decade, there have been intense concerns at the European and global level regarding the recovery, protection, and promotion of cultural heritage in various forms: monuments, historical sites, artifacts, cultural expressions. The world is becoming more and more aware of the loss of honor elements of cultural heritage due to the passage of time, natural or man-made disasters, negligence, and improper conservation. This paper aims to develop a tool to improve the visibility of elements that may become rare in everyday life over the coming years, becoming elements of cultural heritage. The paper refers to a haptic system for simulating kinematic and dynamic operating conditions based on an articulated mechanism, more precisely, the simulation of the operation of a manual saw as a carpentry tool, visualizing the sawing maneuver and increasing the level of understanding of the operation by the possibility of modifying the working parameters. In the developed virtual reality environment, the user’s perception can benefit by evoking two of their senses—the user can see the operation of the hand saw and can feel the manual process of cutting wood. User studies were carried out to evaluate the usability and performance of the virtual reality application. In two test scenarios, 20 people gave positive feedback in using custom-made haptic devices for various categories (engagement, manipulability, enjoyment, realism, usability, overall experience)

Methodology for Controlling Contact Forces in Interactive Grasping Simulation

International audienceThe paper proposes a new methodology to interactively simulate grasping of virtual product prototypes with the goal to evaluate the contact forces between the grasping hand and product as well as the load on the human arm. Interaction between product concepts and the users happens in a virtual environment, in which the user controls a virtual hand interactively. The contact between the virtual hand and the grasped product is simulated and visual feedback is provided to the user. Controlling the virtual hand interactively in real time holds many challenges. One of the challenges is mapping the motion of the user to contact forces, which then results in stable grasping of objects. In this paper we present a new methodology to convert and map the measured position of the real hand into contact forces so that the contact between the virtual hand and the object remains stable. Our approach applies a multi-objective optimization that takes into account the posture and anthropometric properties of grasping hand, as well as the penetration of the hand in the grasped virtual object in order to find the optimal arrangement of contact forces. The paper reports on the principle of our grasping control methodology as well as presents some test cases to show the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach

The Theoretical Study of an Interconnected Suspension System for a Formula Student Car

When it comes to racing applications, the primary engineering goal is to increase the performance envelope of the vehicle for a given set of tires. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to maximize the normal loads on the wheels while at the same time minimizing the tire load variation. The purpose of this paper is to present a mathematical model for a Formula Student car in order to study if performance gains are achieved by replacing the traditional passive suspension with a hydraulically interconnected suspension system. To have a complete picture of the advantages and disadvantages of each system, two vibrating models with 7 degrees of freedom were created in order to simulate the motion response of a Formula Student car to realistic excitations. Two particular interpretations of the results were chosen as important performance indicators. The first one is given by the pitch stability of the chassis relative to the road, which can be linked with a decrease in downforce load variation. The second one is the ability of the wheel to follow the road profile as closely as possible, which can be directly correlated with the amount of mechanical grip of the vehicle. The simulation results indicate that the hydraulically interconnected suspension system offers better results for both proposed cases but at the expense of the roll stability of the vehicle

Flight Control System Design and Analysis of a Light Sport Aircraft with Emphasis on Multibody Dynamics and Aerodynamic Analysis

The present contribution is a companion paper of [9] which presents a preliminary design of the flight control system of a Light Sport Aircraft (based on previous wind tunnel analysis), validation process, aerodynamic simulations in ANSYS CFX and multibody dynamics in Adams. The main purpose of this study is to obtain knowledge on simulation software’s, as Ansys and Adams, in order to design, calculate and improve the flight control mechanism of an ultralight aircraft

ASSESMENT OF THE INJURY SEVERITY OF THE PEDESTRIAN LOWER LIMBS AT THE COLLISION WITH A VEHICLE

—The purpose of the paper is to determine the severity of the injury that may appear at the collision of the frontal part of a vehicle with the pedestrian’s lower limbs. In this study, the bio-mechanic model of the lower limbs was constructed, in order to determine the bending moment of the tibia. The collision forces that were used as input data were collected from a simulation performed in a traffic accident reconstruction software. The developed multi-body simulation is considering all forces acting on the lower limb. The injury severity is estimated using the bending moment of the tibia

How Augmented Reality Could Improve the Student’s Attraction to Learn Mechanisms

Mechanics, along with electronics, is a basic field for the development of high technologies. However, learning mechanics is not an easy task. To meet and adapt to the requirements of students in the digital age, teachers must provide them significant ways to incorporate the latest technologies and applications for their studies. In this study, we explored the application of augmented reality (AR) to improve the learning of the science of Mechanisms. An AR application was implemented and developed for Android-based devices, followed by a qualitative experiment conducted with a sample of 116 students. The study was based on the technology acceptance model and the students’ attitudes towards learning in AR environments were assessed using the structural equation modeling. The results showed that the didactic potential of this application is promising, which is highlighted by the positive attitude about using the application, as well as by the high values obtained for intention to use

Evaluation of the Average Selection Speed Ratio Between an Eye Tracking and a Head Tracking Interaction Interface

Abstract. For a natural interaction, people immersed within a virtual environment (like a CAVE system) use multimodal input devices (i.e. pointing devices, haptic devices, 3D mouse, infrared markers and so on). In the case of physically impaired people who are limited in their ability of moving their hands, it is necessary to use other special input devices in order to be able to perform a natural interaction. For the inference of their preference or interests regarding the surrounding environment, it is possible to take in consideration the movements of their eyes or head. Based on the analysis of eye movements, an assistive high level eye tracking interface can be designed to find the intentions of the users. A natural interaction can also be performed at some extent using head movements. This work is a compared study regarding the promptmess of selection between two interaction interfaces, one based on head tracking and the other based on eye tracking. Several experiments have been conducted in order to obtain a selection speed ratio during the process of selecting virtual objects. This parameter is useful in the evaluation of promptness or ergonomics of a certain selection method, provided that eyes focus almost instantly on the objects of interest, long before a selection is completed with any other kind of interaction device (i.e. mouse, pointing wand, infrared markers). For the tests, the tracking of eyes and head movements has been performed with a high speed and highly accurate head mounted eye tracker and a 6 DoF magnetic sensor attached to the head. Direction of gaze is considered with respect to the orientation of head, thus users are free to turn around or move freely during the experiments. The interaction interface based on eye tracking allows the users to make selections just by gazing at objects, while the head tracking method forces the users to turn their heads towards the objects they want to be selected

Talking on the Phone While Driving: A Literature Review on Driving Simulator Studies

Distracted driving is a growing concern around the world and has been the focus of many naturalistic and simulator-based studies. Driving simulators provide excellent practical and theoretical help in studying the driving process, and considerable efforts have been made to prove their validity. This research aimed to review relevant simulator-based studies focused on investigating the effects of the talking-on-the-phone-while-driving distraction on drivers’ behavior. This work is a scoping review which followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. The search was performed on five databases, covering twenty years of research results. It was focused on finding answers to three research questions that could offer an overview of the main sources of distraction, the research infrastructure, and the measures that were used to analyze and predict the effects of distractions. A number of 4332 studies were identified in the database search, from which 83 were included in the review. The main findings revealed that TPWD distraction negatively affects driving performance, exposing drivers to dangerous traffic situations. Moreover, there is a general understanding that the driver’s cognitive, manual, visual, and auditory resources are all involved, to a certain degree, when executing a secondary task while driving