An Untethered Multimodal Haptic Hand Wearable

Abstract

Haptic primary colors correspond to temperature, vibration, and force. Previous studies combined these three haptic primary colors to produce different types of cutaneous sensations without the need to touch a real object. This study presents a low-cost untethered hand wearable with temperature, vibration, and force feedback. It is made from low-cost and commercial off-the-shelf components. A 26 mm annular Peltier element with a 10 mm hole is coupled to an 8 mm mini disc vibration motor, forming vibro-thermal tactile feedback for the user. All the other fingertips have an 8 mm disc vibration motor strapped on them using Velcro. Moreover, kinesthetic feedback extracted from a retractable ID badge holder with a small solenoid stopper is used as force feedback that restricts the fingers’ movement. Hand and finger tracking is done using Leap Motion Controller interfaced to a virtual setup with different geometric figures developed using Unity software. Therefore, we argue this prototype as a whole actuates cutaneous and kinesthetic feedback that would be useful in many virtual applications such as Virtual Reality (VR), teleoperated surgeries, and teleoperated farming and agriculture.