HEMP-hand-displacement-based pseudo-haptics: A study of a force field application and a behavioural analysis

This paper introduces a novel pseudo-haptic approach called HEMP-Hand-displacEMent-based Pseudo-haptics. The main idea behind HEMP is to provide haptic-like sensations by dynamically displacing the visual representation of the user's hand. This paper studies the possible application of HEMP to the simulation of force fields (FFs). The proposed hardware solution for simulating the hand displacement is based on an augmented reality configuration, the video see-through head-mounted display. A response model is proposed for controlling the hand displacement. This model adapts to the user's hand movements. It also accounts for a number of perceptual and system constraints. An experiment has been carried out to investigate the potential of the proposed technique. Subjects had to perform an FF strength comparison task and to fill in an illusion evaluation questionnaire. Comparison response results show that different FF strength levels are discriminable and the questionnaire indicates that subjects perceive flow pressure-like sensations. The analysis of arm muscular activity seems to confirm these results. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.