HCC: Medium: Collaborative Research: Hand-Mounted Tactile Displays for Haptically Identifying Shape and Dexterous Manipulation

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。基于触觉设备在与虚拟环境提供直观和逼真的交互方面的优势，力反馈或触觉在医学、工程和设计中的应用越来越受欢迎和重要。然而，目前的触觉设备缺乏集成的触觉反馈，即在指尖和物体之间交流接触和滑动。尽管已经开发了各种触觉显示器，但大多数都是大型台式设备，不适合用户在探索虚拟对象时放在S的指尖上。更简单、更紧凑的设备将解决这个问题，并提供一种创造更引人注目的虚拟触摸体验的手段。这项研究的首要目标是通过改善与虚拟世界的机械接口和产生触摸感觉的支持计算方法，显著提高通过触觉接口获得的触摸反馈的质量。这些进展将通过人体受试者实验的进展得到信息和验证，这些实验将最终在医疗骨骼触诊和虚拟组装领域进行两项基于应用的评估。这些案例研究将量化这项研究带来的改进的灵巧操作和探索能力。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Force-feedback, or haptic, applications in medicine, engineering, and design are increasing in popularity and importance based on the advantages of haptic devices in providing intuitive and realistic interactions with virtual environments. However, current haptic devices lack integrated tactile feedback, which communicates contact and sliding between fingertips and an object. Although a variety of tactile displays have been developed, most are large bench-top devices and are impractical to place at a user?s fingertips while exploring a virtual object. Simpler, more compact devices will solve this problem and provide a means to create a more compelling virtual touch experience. The overarching objective of this research is to significantly improve the quality of touch feedback obtained with haptic interfaces by improving both the mechanical interface to virtual worlds and the supporting computational methods that generate touch sensations. These advances will be informed by and validated through a progression of human subject experiments that will culminate in two application-based evaluations in the areas of medical bone palpation and virtual assembly. These case studies will quantify the improved dexterous manipulation and exploration capabilities resulting from this research.