Psychophysical Characterization and Testbed Validation of a Wearable Vibrotactile Glove for Telemanipulation

Abstract

This paper describes and evaluates a high-fidelity, low-cost haptic interface for tele-operation. The interface is a wearable vibrotactile glove containing miniature voice coils that provides continuous, proportional force information to the user's finger-tips. In psychophysical experiments, correlated variations in the frequency and amplitude of the stimulators extended the user's perceptual response range compared to varying amplitude or frequency alone. In an adaptive, force-limited, pick-and-place manipulation task, the interface allowed users to control the grip forces more effectively than no feedback or binary feedback, which produced equivalent performance. A sorting experiment established that proportional tactile feedback enhances the user's ability to discriminate the relative properties of objects, such as weight. We conclude that correlated amplitude and frequency signals, simulating force in a remote environment, substantially improve teleoperation.