A 3D Printable Hand Exoskeleton for the Haptic Exploration of Virtual 3D Scenes

Abstract

Virtual reality is currently experiencing a comeback. A considerable market has developed for VR computer games and educational applications. Some solutions integrate tracked devices which allow users to freely move within a certain space. Virtual 3D model can be visually explored, implemented collision detected allows users to get a feedback for instance by sound or vibration. For research projects there are several approaches which offer to get the actual feedback for the fingers of a hand, when the users virtually touches the surface of a 3D model. However, in the consumer market currently no product is sold which offers this direct feedback for the whole hand. In this paper we introduce a low-cost hand exoskeleton which is usable in conjunction with commodity hardware. It covers each of the five fingers of the user's hand, its design is open-source, low-cost, can be customized and 3D printed by individuals. It aims at improving the haptic perception of users, bases of a popular physical computing platform and is designed to be assembled even by electronically unexperienced users. We show the integration of our lean interface of the wireless exoskeleton into exemplary VR environment and describe a calibration process which is flexible for customizations.