The Robotics Institute
Search the site
RI | Research | Projects | Dexterous Haptic Interface for Interaction with Remote/Virtual Environments

Text only version of this site

[Project image] Dexterous Haptic Interface for Interaction with Remote/Virtual Environments
Head: Pradeep Khosla
Contact: Pradeep Khosla (pkk@ece.cmu.edu)

Mailing address:
Carnegie Mellon University
Robotics Institute
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Associated center: VASC
Associated lab/group: Advanced Mechatronics Lab

This page last updated - January 1999.
Jump to: Project Description | Personnel

Project Description

The goal of this work is to convey finger touch and force information (i.e., haptic feedback) to a human operator so (s)he can "feel" what the remote or virtual hand is grabbing. Why is haptic feedback so important?

Numerous human factor studies have shown that our ability to manipulate objects relies heavily on the contact (touch and force) information we gather. Consequently, we are in the process of demonstrating that haptic feedback, even in crude forms, can help a person manipulate remote or virtual objects better than visual feedback alone.

Building a user-transparent tactile feedback system is a difficult research problem, since current and near-term actuator technologies do not provide the fidelity needed to produce realistic sensations. Moreover, these technologies are not sufficiently small and lightweight for a person to wear in a glove. We have opted to use vibrotactile feedback (using vibration to convey information) so that we can have a wearable system. We have developed a vibrotactile glove which uses miniature voice coils (e.g., small audio speakers) to produce vibrations on the wearer's fingertips and palm.

Our recent work focuses on the best way to modulate the vibration in order to convey information effectively to human users.

Personnel [Past Members]

Name Title Email Address
Pradeep's personal homepage Pradeep Khosla Dean and Philip and Marsha Dowd Prof ECE, RI/ECE pkk@ece.cmu.edu
Roberta's personal homepage Roberta Klatzky Professor klatzky@cmu.edu


The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.
For updates and comments, please see these instructions.
This page maintained by robotwebmaster@ri.cmu.edu