Design and testing of a nonreactive, fingertip, tactile display for interaction with remote environments

Nicholas J. M. Patrick; Thomas B. Sheridan; Michael J. Massimino; Beth A. Marcus

doi:10.1117/12.25441

1 February 1991 Design and testing of a nonreactive, fingertip, tactile display for interaction with remote environments

Nicholas J. M. Patrick, Thomas B. Sheridan, Michael J. Massimino, Beth A. Marcus

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 1387, Cooperative Intelligent Robotics in Space; (1991) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.25441
Event: Advances in Intelligent Robotics Systems, 1990, Boston, MA, United States

Abstract

During interaction with remote environments, the operator may benefit from the addition of force feedback to the ubiquitous visual feedback. However, the apparatus required for reactive force feedback (feedback which imposes the remote environment's motion-constraints on the user by applying joint torques) is cumbersome and expensive, especially when implemented in conjunction with high degree-offreedom precision joint motion sensing. Non-reactive, tactile feedback can provide similar information, and can be implemented at much lower cost. The purposes of this research were (1)todesign and demonstrate an inexpensive tactile feedback system, and (2) to determine the extent to which such a system could aid in the performance of a simple teleoperation task. After some experimentation with some different display technologies, and preliminary design, a vibrotactile display was chosen because of its low weight, size, and low cost. The final design consisted of two voice-coils, one each for the thumb and the index finger, which were driven by a 250 Hz variableamplitude signal produced by an analog electronics unit which was controlled by a PC. Experimental results are provided to show that the addition of the tactile display provides a small but significant improvement in manual tracking performance over the use of the visual display alone, and that the tracking task may be performed with only the tactile display. In further experiments the tactile display is compared with reactive force-feedback and is shown to confer most of the reactive display's performance improvement over tracking with only a visual display.

Citation Download Citation

Nicholas J. M. Patrick, Thomas B. Sheridan, Michael J. Massimino, and Beth A. Marcus "Design and testing of a nonreactive, fingertip, tactile display for interaction with remote environments", Proc. SPIE 1387, Cooperative Intelligent Robotics in Space, (1 February 1991); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.25441

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available