Haptic Devices: Wearability-Based Taxonomy and Literature Review

Abstract

In the last decade, several new haptic devices have been developed, contributing to the definition of more realistic virtual environments. An overview on this topic requires a description of the various technologies employed in building such devices, and of their application domains. This survey describes the current technology underlying haptic devices, based on the concept of "wearability level". More than 90 devices, newly developed and described in scientific papers published in the period 2010-2021, are reviewed, which provide either haptic illusions or novel haptic feedback for teleoperation, entertainment, training, education, guidance and notification. As a result, the analyzed systems are divided into grounded, hand-held and wearable devices; the latter are further split into exoskeletons and gloves, finger-worn devices, and arm-worn devices. For the systems in each of these categories, descriptions and tables are provided that analyze their structure, including device mass and employed actuators, their applications, and other characteristics such as type of haptic feedback and tactile illusions. The paper also provides an overview of devices worn in parts of the human body other than arms and hands, and precisely haptic vests, jackets and belts, and haptic devices for head, legs and feet. Based on this analysis, the survey also provides a discussion on research gaps and challenges, and potential future directions.INDEX TERMS haptic devices, virtual reality interfaces, kinesthetic feedback, tactile feedback, haptic illusions.

Perception-centric design considerations for low-cost haptic emulation in prototypes

“…There exists some taxonomical literature outlining existing haptic technologies by wearability (Adilkhanov et al, 2022), and actuators (Huang et al, 2022), as well as examples of their utility in product design (Kern et al, 2023); however, there is no comprehensive categorisation of the steps involved in integrating emulative vibrotactile haptics at low cost. The aim of this paper is therefore to investigate methods of implementing emulative vibrotactile haptics; achieved via an action-based research process, exemplified by a case study based on the creation of a prototype of a common power drill in Section 3.…”

Metaverse Wearables for Immersive Digital Healthcare: A Review

“…Thus hand‐worn advanced haptic devices have been developed for more sophisticated cognition and feedback. [ 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ] Multi‐focus AR glasses with an artificial muscle actuator were introduced, driven by adjusting focus through a soft haptic glove ( Figure 2 a ). [ 49 ] A shape memory alloy (SMA) actuator integrated with the AR glasses controls the position of the display to adjust the focusing distance between the human eye and the virtual objects.…”

Copyright Protection of 3D Digitized Sculptures by Use of Haptic Device for Adding Local-Imperceptible Bumps

“…In recent years, haptic devices have advanced significantly, so there are so-called haptic hands. A haptic hand is a robotic hand whose design is simplified and created to imitate the human hand and provide haptic force feedback in all joints at the moment of contact with an object in the virtual environment [42,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59]. Authors feel that using a haptic hand for digital sculpting and adding protection would allow for a more realistic sculpting experience than what was achieved with the haptic device used in this research.…”