Tactile Perception Effects of Shear Force Feedback and Vibrotactile Feedback on Virtual Texture Representations

Abstract

Nowadays, haptic feedback technology has been applied to many applications to help users acquiring more information concerning surrounding environments. In this research, a haptic feedback device was developed to combine shear force feedback and vibrotactile feedback to create realistic lateral stroking sensations to user’s index fingerpad in virtual reality environments. The shear force feedback simulates the friction force which stretches the skin of the fingerpad during stroking on an object’s surface, and the vibrotactile feedback simulates the surface texture information of the object in the real world. The user test shows that adding shear force feedback can increase the realism and accuracy of the virtual texture discrimination, compared with only vibrotactile feedback presented.