Robotics and Biology Laboratory

A Rendering Framework for Wearable Haptics in Large Virtual Environments

People

Jonas Dörr

Ingo Kossyk

Oliver Brock

Description

A novel wearable haptic interface based on an exoskelett was developed at RBO. It allows us to apply force in three degrees of freedom to the user's right hand while the user may walk around in an arbitrary virtual environment. Position and orientation of the backpack, the joystick and the user's head is accessible.

In order to guarantee stable performance and to display stiff contacts, high force update rates around 1kHz are required. This work focuses on methods to provide accurate haptic rendering even if the virtual environment is made up of large-scale objects composed of millions of polygons. Therefore, an own hybrid data structure will be defined and compared with common techniques. Additionally, the possibility of geometry decimation based on experiments upon the user's misperception will be discussed.

Publications

M. C. Lin and M. A. Otaduy. Haptic Rendering: Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications. A K Peters, Ltd., 2008. ISBN 978-1-56881-332-5.


I. Kossyk, J. Dörr, and K. Kondak. Design and evaluation of a wearable haptic interface for large workspaces. In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages 4674–4679, 2010.