Haptic feedback for virtual or mixed reality environments using a combination of passive haptics and active force feedback.

摘要

One of the most promising advances for virtual environments is the development of displays that provide a sense of touch during interactions with virtual objects. These displays, called haptic displays, can increase the realism of virtual environments and communicate information that improves user performance or understanding.; A technique is presented that combines sensations from a portable force-feedback glove with sensations of direct contact with passive objects in the user's workspace. This technique can be viewed as the haptic analogue of a visual mixed reality display, since it can be used to combine real and virtual elements in a single display. By overcoming some limitations of the individual approaches, this approach can improve the effectiveness of virtual environments for training and other applications.; The approach is evaluated for basic interactions with a virtual control panel. A between-subjects experiment compares objective performance measures and subjective evaluations for groups of human subjects experiencing different haptic display techniques. The combination of two approaches is shown to result in improved performance and improved subjective ratings when compared to the use of only a force-feedback glove, and it is shown to improve subjective ratings when compared to the use of only a passive object.; Additionally, several technological improvements have been made to an existing force-feedback system. These are necessary to provide accurate spatial registration and improved force-feedback quality for the successful combination with passive objects. The improvements are useful for other applications of the force-feedback device, and some of the methods presented can be applied to other devices.