Chinello Francesco, Pacchierotti Claudio, Malvezzi Monica, Prattichizzo Domenico
IEEE Trans Haptics. 2018 Jan-Mar;11(1):39-50. doi: 10.1109/TOH.2017.2755015. Epub 2017 Sep 21.
We present a novel three Revolute-Revolute-Spherical (3RRS) wearable fingertip device for the rendering of stiffness information. It is composed of a static upper body and a mobile end-effector. The upper body is located on the nail side of the finger, supporting three small servo motors, and the mobile end-effector is in contact with the finger pulp. The two parts are connected by three articulated legs, actuated by the motors. The end-effector can move toward the user's fingertip and rotate it to simulate contacts with arbitrarily-oriented surfaces. Moreover, a vibrotactile motor placed below the end-effector conveys vibrations to the fingertip. The proposed device weights 25 g for 35 x 50 x 48 mm dimensions. To test the effectiveness of our wearable haptic device and its level of wearability, we carried out two experiments, enrolling 30 human subjects in total. The first experiment tested the capability of our device in differentiating stiffness information, while the second one focused on evaluating its applicability in an immersive virtual reality scenario. Results showed the effectiveness of the proposed wearable solution, with a JND for stiffness of 208.5 17.2 N/m. Moreover, all subjects preferred the virtual interaction experience when provided with wearable cutaneous feedback, even if results also showed that subjects found our device still a bit difficult to use.
我们提出了一种用于呈现刚度信息的新型三旋转-旋转-球形（3RRS）可穿戴指尖设备。它由一个静态上半身和一个移动末端执行器组成。上半身位于手指的指甲侧，支撑着三个小型伺服电机，移动末端执行器与手指 pulp 接触。这两个部分通过由电机驱动的三条铰接腿连接。末端执行器可以朝着用户的指尖移动并旋转它，以模拟与任意取向表面的接触。此外，放置在末端执行器下方的一个振动触觉电机将振动传递到指尖。所提出的设备尺寸为 35 x 50 x 48 毫米，重量为 25 克。为了测试我们可穿戴触觉设备的有效性及其可穿戴程度，我们进行了两项实验，总共招募了 30 名人类受试者。第一个实验测试了我们的设备区分刚度信息的能力，而第二个实验则侧重于评估其在沉浸式虚拟现实场景中的适用性。结果表明了所提出的可穿戴解决方案的有效性，刚度的 JND 为 208.5 ± 17.2 N/m。此外，即使结果还表明受试者发现我们的设备仍然有点难以使用，但当提供可穿戴皮肤反馈时，所有受试者都更喜欢虚拟交互体验。
