Haptic Feedback Increases Perceived Social Presence

The haptic interface or force feedback device improves the quality of human computer interaction by accommodating the sense of touch in a computer simulation. A haptic device enables a two way communication between the user and the host computer. The applications of force feedback device cover a wide area such as in medical training, systems for the visually impaired, engineering research, and creative art-work. The role of haptic feedback varies depending on the applications in question and the devices used. This includes haptic as a teaching tool, and a communication aid. Despite the benefits of haptic feedback, its deployment to support interactions in a virtual environment is still slow. This is due to the high cost of the haptic devices in the market. We address this issue by presenting a conceptual framework in designing and implementing a cost-effective haptic device; building on similar concepts obtained from existing technologies. The device is developed using those gadgets that are mainly available in-house. It is projected that haptic feedback generated from the device could benefit teaching abstract concepts to students.

Most prosthetic hand users are limited to visual feedback of movement performance. To characterize the benefit of vibrotactile feedback for a task that lacks haptic feedback, a virtual environment was used to experimentally manipulate visual, task-relevant haptic, and remote vibrotactile feedback on simple object manipulation for unimpaired subjects. The combination of visual and remote vibrotactile feedback was compared to visual feedback alone, and to simultaneous visual and direct haptic feedback to represent ideal performance. Visual and vibrotactile feedback resulted in improvement of most performance variables including difficulty ratings relative to visual feedback alone. However addition of sensory cues to visual feedback increased trial times and the increase was steeper for vibrotactile than for haptic feedback. Specifically, during vibrotactile feedback the velocity did not change, but the duration of execution increased due to improved performance, resulting in increased trial times. This result suggests future exploration of performance improvement and execution speed for augmented sensory feedback.

Camera drones allow exploring remote scenes that are inaccessible or inappropriate to visit in person. However, these exploration experiences are often limited due to insufficient scene information provided by front cameras, where only 2D images or videos are supplied. Combining a camera drone vision with haptic feedback would augment users' spatial understandings of the remote environment. But such designs are usually difficult for users to learn and apply, due to the complexity of the system and unfluent UAV control. In this paper, we present a new telepresence system for remote environment exploration, with a drone agent controlled by a VR mid-air panel. The drone is capable of generating real-time location and landmark details using integrated Simultaneous Location and Mapping (SLAM). The SLAMs' point cloud generations are produced using RGB input, and the results are passed to a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) to reconstruct 3D remote scenes in real-time. The reconstructed objects are taken advantage of by haptic devices which could improve user experience through haptic rendering. Capable of providing both visual and haptic feedback, our system allows users to examine and exploit remote areas without having to be physically present. An experiment has been conducted to verify the usability of 3D reconstruction result in haptic feedback rendering.

Teleoperated minimally invasive surgical robots can significantly enhance a surgeon's accuracy, dexterity and visualization. However, current commercially available systems do not include significant haptic (force and tactile) feedback to the operator. This paper describes experiments to characterize this problem, as well as several methods to provide haptic feedback in order to improve surgeon's performance. There exist a variety of sensing and control methods that enable haptic feedback, although a number of practical considerations, e.g. cost, complexity and biocompatibility, present significant challenges. The ability of teleoperated robot-assisted surgical systems to measure and display haptic information leads to a number of additional exciting clinical and scientific opportunities, such as active operator assistance through "virtual fixtures" and the automatic acquisition of tissue properties.

Haptic feedback provides an essential sensory stimulus crucial for interaction and analyzing three-dimensional spatio-temporal phenomena on surface visualizations. Given its ability to provide enhanced spatial perception and scene maneuverability, virtual reality (VR) catalyzes haptic interactions on surface visualizations. Various interaction modes, encompassing both mid-air and on-surface interactions-with or without the application of assisting force stimuli-have been explored using haptic force feedback devices. In this paper, we evaluate the use of on-surface and assisted on-surface haptic modes of interaction compared to a no-haptic interaction mode. A force-based haptic stylus is used for all three modalities; the on-surface mode uses collision based forces, whereas the assisted on-surface mode is accompanied by an additional snapping force. We conducted a within-subjects user study involving fundamental interaction tasks performed on surface visualizations. Keeping a consistent visual design across all three modes, our study incorporates tasks that require the localization of the highest, lowest, and random points on surfaces; and tasks that focus on brushing curves on surfaces with varying complexity and occlusion levels. Our findings show that participants took almost the same time to brush curves using all the interaction modes. They could draw smoother curves using the on-surface interaction modes compared to the no-haptic mode. However, the assisted on-surface mode provided better accuracy than the on-surface mode. The on-surface mode was slower in point localization, but the accuracy depended on the visual cues and occlusions associated with the tasks. Finally, we discuss participant feedback on using haptic force feedback as a tangible input modality and share takeaways to aid the design of haptics-based tangible interactions for surface visualizations.

This paper describes an experiment that studies the effect of basic haptic feedback in creating a sense of social interaction within a shared virtual environment (SVE). Although there have been a number of studies investigating the effect of haptic feedback on collaborative task performance, they do not address the effect it has in inducing social presence. The purpose of this experiment is to show that haptic feedback enhances the sense of social presence within a mediated environment. An experiment was carried out using a shared desktop based virtual environment where 20 remotely located couples who did not know one another had to solve a puzzle together. In 10 groups they had shared haptic communication through their hands, and in another group they did not. Hence the haptic feedback was not used for completing the task itself, but rather as a means of social interacting – communicating with the other participant. The results suggest that basic haptic feedback increases the sense of social presence within the shared VE.

Periodic Kinesthetic Guidance Cannot Expedite Learning Surgical Skills.

Visual representations are used in various digitization processes to display objects in immersive environments. In industrial environments, the self-representation can be very helpful when reviewing 3D models to conform realistic proportions, particularly in combi-nation with haptic feedback that goes beyond vibrating controllers. For instance, haptic feedback in combination with a virtual representation supports working on use cases where collision is an important part to maintain data quality. To understand the dependency of both, we conducted a pilot study with 15 users from the automotive sector to examine the influence of upper limb representations on haptic feedback in Virtual Reality. Each participant was assigned with one of three upper limb representations which was used in different scenarios using haptic feedback devices. Overall, we found that the realistic arm representation was rated highest in terms of perceived realism and achieved the best task performance.

In both teleoperation in real space and exploration in virtual space, ‘passive’ and ‘active’ haptic feedback can help to improve the performance of the task, especially in object handover and exploring. However, the current wearable haptic devices are hard to display continuous omnidirectional motion feedback simultaneously, which makes it not yet achieved. In this study, we thus propose a cutaneous haptic device, which enables continuous omnidirectional motion feedback for exhibiting ‘active’ and ‘passive’ haptic feedback. By applying small smart actuators (i.e., piezo actuators), the device can obtain contact force and be wearable. By arranging the closed loop with a plain-woven structure, our device makes continuous omnidirectional motion feedback possible. Our 35 g device can generate 0.94 N contact force and 0.5 N shear force. The passive and active haptic evaluations also proved its haptic capability. In conclusion, our proposed device with ‘active’ and ‘passive’ haptic feedback can provide continuous omnidirectional motion making it possible to be used for precise teleoperation.

This paper presents the development of a novel virtual reality (VR) machine learning (ML) framework that incorporates haptic feedback to improve sports training scenarios. The framework uses You Look Only Once (YoLo) for object detection, and combines it with ensemble learning to analyze the performance of athletes in a simulated environment and provide real-time feedbacks. The system includes haptic feedback devices that are controlled via Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) to simulate the physical sensation of a real-world sports scenario, allowing athletes to experience the sensation of force, impact, and movements. The proposed system was tested using a group of professional athletes who participated in various sports, including football, basketball, and tennis. The athletes were asked to perform various training scenarios in the virtual environment, and their performance was compared with their real-world performance levels. The results showed that the proposed system improved the athletes' performance significantly, as they were able to receive immediate and accurate feedback on their movements, and the haptic feedback provided a realistic sensory experience that enhanced their trainings. The proposed research has the potential to revolutionize sports training by providing athletes with an efficient and effective way to improve their performance in a set of safe and controlled environments. The system can be customized to suit various sports and training scenarios, and the ML algorithms can be trained on large datasets to improve their accuracy and effectiveness. The incorporation of haptic feedback provides a unique and realistic experience, making the training more engaging and effective under real-time scenarios. The proposed system showcased an accuracy 93.5%, with 3.5% higher precision, and 4.9% higher recall than existing models, which has the potential to enhance athletic performance and revolutionize the way athletes train for different sports.

A new computer haptics algorithm to be used in general interactive manipulations of deformable virtual objects is presented. In multimodal interactive simulations, haptic feedback computation often comes from contact forces. Subsequently, the fidelity of haptic rendering depends significantly on contact space modeling. Contact and friction laws between deformable models are often simplified in up to date methods. They do not allow a "realistic" rendering of the subtleties of contact space physical phenomena (such as slip and stick effects due to friction or mechanical coupling between contacts). In this paper, we use Signorini's contact law and Coulomb's friction law as a computer haptics basis. Real-time performance is made possible thanks to a linearization of the behavior in the contact space, formulated as the so-called Delassus operator, and iteratively solved by a Gauss-Seidel type algorithm. Dynamic deformation uses corotational global formulation to obtain the Delassus operator in which the mass and stiffness ratio are dissociated from the simulation time step. This last point is crucial to keep stable haptic feedback. This global approach has been packaged, implemented, and tested. Stable and realistic 6D haptic feedback is demonstrated through a clipping task experiment.

Evaluation of Motor Training Performance in 3D Virtual Environment via Combining Brain-computer Interface and Haptic Feedback

Haptic feedback is important to improve the operability of virtual objects. However, AR systems with haptic feedback are still not many. Moreover, users cannot perform tasks that need large workspaces in those systems because of physical constraints from haptic feedback devices. In this paper, we combined a wearable haptic device and a marker-less AR technology to develop an AR system in which users can perform activities that need large workspaces. Differences of the operability of virtual objects in an assembly task of large machines are examined to evaluate effects of the haptic feedback in this system. The result indicates that haptic feedback is effective and users can perform activities that need large space in this system.

This paper proposes a new method of object manipulation in a Virtual Environment that uses a visual and haptic feedback based manipulation aid. If the displayed position of the object is constrained on a face of another object in the virtual environment, a user can place the virtual object at a precise position as easily as in a real environment. The visual feedback based manipulation aid constrains the motion of the virtual object as if it were moved in a real environment. Furthermore, in simultaneous correspondence with the visual constraints, the haptic feedback based manipulation aid constrains the motion of the user’s hand in the real environment. The proposed method introduces a magnetic metaphor: the user has the sensation of manipulating a virtual object on a rigid surface without using a large and powerful robot arm and the time consuming simulation of detailed physical phenomena. The properties of this manipulation aid based on two kinds of feedback are discussed. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed method.

Although more than 1 in 10 people experience pruritus, there are limited medical technologies that can accurately and continuously quantify and simultaneously reduce scratching behaviors through nonpharmacological methods. To evaluate the accuracy and efficacy of an artificial intelligence-enabled wearable sensor with closed-loop haptic feedback to decrease nocturnal scratch in patients with mild atopic dermatitis who report a moderate to severe degree of scratching. This single-arm 2-stage cohort study with a within-participants design was conducted at a single center and carried out in an at-home environment. Adult patients with atopic dermatitis were recruited from the Northwestern University Department of Dermatology in Chicago, Illinois. Participants were fluent in English, 18 years old or older, had a diagnosis of atopic dermatitis, and self-reported moderate or severe scratching behaviors. Each participant's disease at time of recruitment was scored via the Validated Investigator Global Assessment for Atopic Dermatitis. Data were collected from April to July 2023. Haptic feedback delivered by a wearable sensor mounted on the hand triggered whenever nocturnal scratch was detected by an artificial intelligence algorithm. Participants initially wore the sensor for sensing only for 7 nights to assess baseline nocturnal scratching and sleep parameters. This was followed by an additional 7 nights of wearing the sensor with haptic feedback activated. Retrospective analysis was performed for scratch events and scratch duration per night and per hour of sleep opportunity. Paired t tests were used to compare changes in patient scratching behaviors before and after use of the artificial intelligence-enabled haptic feedback devices. Of 10 included patients, 6 were female, and the mean (SD) age was 36 (12) years. All patients had a Validated Investigator Global Assessment for Atopic Dermatitis score of 0 to 2 (clear to mild) who contributed a total of 104 sleep nights and 831 monitoring hours. No patients were lost to follow-up. There was a significant decrease in mean (SD) scratch events nightly (45.6 [24.0] vs 32.8 [13.0]; P = .03), a 28% difference, and mean (SD) scratch duration per hour of sleep opportunity (15.8 [10.7] seconds vs 7.9 [3.7] seconds; P = .01), a 50% difference, when haptic feedback was activated in the second week without a decrease in total sleep opportunity. This study found that haptic feedback may be used as a nonpharmacological intervention to reduce nocturnal scratching in patients with mild atopic dermatitis. Future randomized studies are needed to confirm.