A GLOVE INTERFACE WITH TACTILE FEELING DISPLAY FOR HUMANOID ROBOTICS AND VIRTUAL REALITY SYSTEMS

Abstract

This paper focuses on the study and the experimentation of a glove interface for robotics and virtual reality applications. The system can acquire the phalanxes position and force of an operator during the execution of a grasp. We show how it is possible to use and integrate this data in order to permit the user to interact with a synthetic world. In particular the system we designed can reproduce tactile and force sensation. Electrodes and actuators are activated according to the information coming from the real world (position and force of the user’s finger) and from a physical model that represents the virtual object. We also report some psychophysical experiments we conducted on five subjects, in this case only the electro-tactile stimulator was used in order to generate a touch sensation.