Haptic technology

About: Haptic technology is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 18818 publications have been published within this topic receiving 306713 citations. The topic is also known as: haptics & haptic media.

Designing with haptic feedback

Abstract: Haptic feedback is a design element for human-computer interfaces, and this paper discusses when and how it can be used to best effect in interactive applications. It begins with consideration of the unique attributes of the touch sense in physiological and psychological terms, and the nature of information and control that touching provides. It reviews where active touching helps, by setting forth the forms it may take and important parameters that describe it; and evaluates the specific benefits it offers to contemporary interface problems. It ends with a proposal for a simple interaction model that emphasizes holistic design principles, and highlights issues that arise in the process of creating specific haptic interfaces.

A robotic teacher of Chinese handwriting

Abstract: We introduce a virtual teaching system for Chinese ideograms that guides movements by haptic and visual means. A powerful 6-DOF haptic interface and reflection of the image ensure transparent virtual manipulation with undistorted hand-eye coordination. The guidance mode and assistance levels can be adapted to the user and optimized for learning. The user's performance and progress are quantitatively evaluated. Initial experiments with six subjects showed how the students improve their skills.

Predictive haptic guidance: intelligent user assistance for the control of dynamic tasks

Abstract: Intelligent systems are increasingly able to offer real-time information relevant to a user's manual control of an interactive system, such as dynamic system control space constraints for animation control and driving. However, it is difficult to present this information in a usable manner and other approaches which have employed haptic cues for manual control in "slow" systems often lead to instabilities in highly dynamic tasks. We present a predictive haptic guidance method based on a look-ahead algorithm, along with a user evaluation which compares it with other approaches (no guidance and a standard potential-field method) in a 1-DoF steered path-following scenario. Look-ahead guidance outperformed the other methods in both quantitative performance and subjective preference across a range of path complexity and visibility and a force analysis demonstrated that it applied smaller and fewer forces to users. These results (which appear to derive from the predictive guidance's supporting users in taking earlier and more subtle corrective action) suggest the potential of predictive methods in aiding manual control of dynamic interactive tasks where intelligent support is available.

Tool Contact Acceleration Feedback for Telerobotic Surgery

Abstract: Minimally invasive telerobotic surgical systems enable surgeons to perform complicated procedures without large incisions. Unfortunately, these systems typically do not provide the surgeon with sensory feedback aside from stereoscopic vision. We have, thus, developed VerroTouch, a sensing and actuating device that can be added to Intuitive Surgical's existing da Vinci S Surgical System to provide auditory and vibrotactile feedback of tool contact accelerations. These cues let the surgeon feel and hear contact with rough textures as well as the making and breaking of contact with objects and other tools. To evaluate the merits of this approach, we had 11 surgeons use an augmented da Vinci S to perform three in vitro manipulation tasks under four different feedback conditions: with no acceleration feedback, with audio feedback, with haptic feedback, and with both audio and haptic. Subjects expressed a significant preference for the inclusion of tool contact acceleration feedback, although they disagreed over which sensory modality was best. Other survey responses and qualitative written comments indicate that the feedback may have improved the subject's concentration and situational awareness by strengthening the connection between the surgeon and the surgical instruments. Analysis of quantitative task metrics shows that the feedback neither improves nor impedes the performance of the chosen tasks.

HIM: a framework for haptic instant messaging

Abstract: Instant Messaging (IM) is a popular chatting platform on the internet and increasingly permeates teenage life. Even intimate and emotional content is discussed. As touch is a powerful signal for emotional content, haptic signals, and especially hapticons can contribute to overcome the inevi-table loss of subtle non-verbal communication cues. Audio-visual extensions of IM to share emotions, in particular emoticons, have been received enthusiastically by IM users. This indicates a realistic user-need for hapticons in IM.The Haptic Instant Messaging (HIM) framework introduced in this paper combines communication of textual messages with haptic effects and hapticons. The application is build as an open framework and supports small chatting communities to explore the design and use of hapticons and haptic IO devices. Researchers can use the HIM framework to monitor the use of haptics in communication and how haptics contribute to the fun and meaning of instant messaging.