OneTip Is Enough: A Non-Rigid Input Device for Single-Fingertip Human-Computer Interaction With 6-DOF

Abstract

With the development of novel display technologies such as 3-D graphical applications, virtual and augmented reality, there are new demands for more efficient and natural multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) interaction devices. However, traditional rigid touchscreens provide only the 2-D position of the touch point as input information, which cannot meet the needs of high DOF interactions, and many of the existing interaction technologies suffer from the problems of low resolution and lack of information. At the same time, non-rigid interaction interfaces provide deformability for input and have been shown to extend the richness of input vocabulary. This article proposes a new non-rigid input device, OneTip, for single-fingertip human-computer interaction with 6-DOF. In terms of design and manufacture, OneTip employs the bio-inspired design of Skin-On interfaces to mimic the sensitivity of human skin and provide 6-DOF interaction capabilities. In terms of sensing, OneTip uses the visuotactile sensing technique based on the marker displacement method to achieve high-resolution and multi-modal measurements. We propose a novel fingertip pose estimation method based on incipient slip detection, a non-learning algorithm that does not require registration and priori information. Experiments show that OneTip had good 6-D pose estimation accuracy, with RMSEs of translation and rotation not exceeding 0.1mm and 2.6°, respectively, within the linear interval. Extensive experiments were also conducted to explore the application of OneTip in typical virtual manipulation tasks and the possibility of combining it with other interaction devices. This work is intended to serve as a reference for other researchers exploring innovative interaction techniques.