Preliminary Tests of an Arm-Grounded Haptic Feedback Device in Telemanipulation

Abstract This paper investigates the use of arm-grounded force feedback applied to an operator’s fingertips while performing telemanipulation tasks with a dexterous robot hand. The forces were applied by a cable-driven feedback device used in conjunction with an instrumented glove. Experiments were conducted to evaluate subjects’ ability to discriminate between objects of different size and stiffness, and to regulate grasp forces. The results indicate that object size discrimination was comparable to using a conventional haptic feedback interface grounded to the environment, though still not as effective as direct human contact. The force regulation indicated that the user could maintain a fairly constant force, but was subject to some system noise. Discrimination of object stiffness was the most difficult task, due to the inherent compliances of the system and yielded a 75% success rate for distinguishing between compliant (150 N/m) and rigid objects.