Multi-Fingertip Vibrotactile Array Interface for 3D Virtual Interaction*

Abstract

Vibrotactile feedback is one of the most favored haptic feedback methods to provide tactile information to users. In spite of its popularity, vibrotactile feedback has been used in a limited range of VR applications. In the present study, we suggest two methodologies incorporating fingertip vibrotactile array interfaces for 3D Virtual Interaction. Our proposed methods use only four and five actuators while they can render continuous motion of contact points as well as the collision depth. We evaluated the feasibility of our fingertip interface systems with an experiment on the human perception of virtual object size. The experimental results indicate that the participants’ ability to perceive the size of a virtual object with our methods is comparable to the one rendered with a force feedback interface.