scholarly journals HapticSnakes: multi-haptic feedback wearable robots for immersive virtual reality

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Al-Sada ◽  
Keren Jiang ◽  
Shubhankar Ranade ◽  
Mohammed Kalkattawi ◽  
Tatsuo Nakajima

Abstract Haptic feedback plays a large role in enhancing immersion and presence in VR. However, previous research and commercial products have limitations in terms of variety and locations of delivered feedbacks. To address these challenges, we present HapticSnakes, which are snake-like waist-worn robots that can deliver multiple types of feedback in various body locations, including taps-, gestures-, airflow-, brushing- and gripper-based feedbacks. We developed two robots, one is lightweight and suitable for taps and gestures, while the other is capable of multiple types of feedback. We presented a design space based on our implementations and conducted two evaluations. Since taps are versatile, easy to deliver and largely unexplored, our first evaluation focused on distinguishability of tap strengths and locations on the front and back torso. Participants had highest accuracy in distinguishing feedback on the uppermost regions and had superior overall accuracy in distinguishing feedback strengths over locations. Our second user study investigated HapticSnakes’ ability to deliver multiple feedback types within VR experiences, as well as users’ impressions of wearing our robots and receiving novel feedback in VR. The results indicate that participants had distinct preferences for feedbacks and were in favor of using our robots throughout. Based on the results of our evaluations, we extract design considerations and discuss research challenges and opportunities for developing multi-haptic feedback robots.

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 3673
Author(s):  
Stefan Grushko ◽  
Aleš Vysocký ◽  
Petr Oščádal ◽  
Michal Vocetka ◽  
Petr Novák ◽  
...  

In a collaborative scenario, the communication between humans and robots is a fundamental aspect to achieve good efficiency and ergonomics in the task execution. A lot of research has been made related to enabling a robot system to understand and predict human behaviour, allowing the robot to adapt its motion to avoid collisions with human workers. Assuming the production task has a high degree of variability, the robot’s movements can be difficult to predict, leading to a feeling of anxiety in the worker when the robot changes its trajectory and approaches since the worker has no information about the planned movement of the robot. Additionally, without information about the robot’s movement, the human worker cannot effectively plan own activity without forcing the robot to constantly replan its movement. We propose a novel approach to communicating the robot’s intentions to a human worker. The improvement to the collaboration is presented by introducing haptic feedback devices, whose task is to notify the human worker about the currently planned robot’s trajectory and changes in its status. In order to verify the effectiveness of the developed human-machine interface in the conditions of a shared collaborative workspace, a user study was designed and conducted among 16 participants, whose objective was to accurately recognise the goal position of the robot during its movement. Data collected during the experiment included both objective and subjective parameters. Statistically significant results of the experiment indicated that all the participants could improve their task completion time by over 45% and generally were more subjectively satisfied when completing the task with equipped haptic feedback devices. The results also suggest the usefulness of the developed notification system since it improved users’ awareness about the motion plan of the robot.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Andoni Rivera Pinto ◽  
Johan Kildal ◽  
Elena Lazkano

In the context of industrial production, a worker that wants to program a robot using the hand-guidance technique needs that the robot is available to be programmed and not in operation. This means that production with that robot is stopped during that time. A way around this constraint is to perform the same manual guidance steps on a holographic representation of the digital twin of the robot, using augmented reality technologies. However, this presents the limitation of a lack of tangibility of the visual holograms that the user tries to grab. We present an interface in which some of the tangibility is provided through ultrasound-based mid-air haptics actuation. We report a user study that evaluates the impact that the presence of such haptic feedback may have on a pick-and-place task of the wrist of a holographic robot arm which we found to be beneficial.


2015 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios V. Vasilakos ◽  
Zhe Li ◽  
Gwendal Simon ◽  
Wei You

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yea Som Lee ◽  
Bong-Soo Sohn

3D maps such as Google Earth and Apple Maps (3D mode), in which users can see and navigate in 3D models of real worlds, are widely available in current mobile and desktop environments. Users usually use a monitor for display and a keyboard/mouse for interaction. Head-mounted displays (HMDs) are currently attracting great attention from industry and consumers because they can provide an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience at an affordable cost. However, conventional keyboard and mouse interfaces decrease the level of immersion because the manipulation method does not resemble actual actions in reality, which often makes the traditional interface method inappropriate for the navigation of 3D maps in virtual environments. From this motivation, we design immersive gesture interfaces for the navigation of 3D maps which are suitable for HMD-based virtual environments. We also describe a simple algorithm to capture and recognize the gestures in real-time using a Kinect depth camera. We evaluated the usability of the proposed gesture interfaces and compared them with conventional keyboard and mouse-based interfaces. Results of the user study indicate that our gesture interfaces are preferable for obtaining a high level of immersion and fun in HMD-based virtual environments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 1378-1391
Author(s):  
Surabhi Gupta ◽  
Karthik Ramachandra

Procedural extensions of SQL have been in existence for many decades now. However, little is known about their magnitude of usage and their complexity in real-world workloads. Procedural code executing in a RDBMS is known to have inefficiencies and limitations; as a result there have been several efforts to address this problem. However, the lack of understanding of their use in real workloads makes it challenging to (a) motivate new work in this area, (b) identify research challenges and opportunities, and (c) demonstrate impact of novel work. We aim to address these challenges with our work. In this paper, we present the results of our in-depth analysis of thousands of stored procedures, user-defined functions and triggers taken from several real workloads. We introduce SQL-ProcBench , a benchmark for procedural workloads in RDBMSs. SQL-ProcBench has been created using the insights derived from our analysis, and thus represents real workloads. Using SQL-ProcBench, we present an experimental evaluation on several database engines to understand and identify research challenges and opportunities. We emphasize the need to work on these interesting and relevant problems, and encourage researchers to contribute to this area.


2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 521-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joana Castro Pereira ◽  
Miguel Rodrigues Freitas

Abstract Cities have become important actors in international relations, and integral to security and environmental politics. We are living in an increasingly urban world, dominated by human settlements and activities. The central role now played by humans in shaping the planet has led us into an uncertain, unstable, and dangerous geological epoch – the Anthropocene – that poses great and additional challenges to security. Local and global spheres are connected as never before, generating ‘glocal’ issues in which water plays a central role. Water is the element that interconnects the complex web of food, energy, climate, economic growth, and human security. In a rapidly urbanising world, cities influence the hydrological cycle in major but uncertain ways, affecting water resources beyond their boundaries. There is no doubt that these issues are highly relevant to the discipline of International Relations (IR). However, IR scholars have been slow to engage with them, and most academic studies of cities and water security still emanate from the natural sciences. This article examines the ways in which cities in the Anthropocene challenge water security, and why IR needs to reinvent itself if it wants to sustain its contribution to global security.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothée Hefner ◽  
Tobias Rothmund ◽  
Christoph Klimmt ◽  
Mario Gollwitzer

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