Towards Encountered-type Haptic Interaction for Immersive Bilateral Telemanipulation
Keywords: Immersive Telemanipulation, Encountered-type Haptics, Virtual Reality
Abstract: Encountered-type haptics (ETH) is an emerging research field allowing unencumbered physical haptic interaction in virtual reality (VR). In this paper, we introduce ETH as an interaction medium for immersive remote telemanipulation, to enable intuitive bare-hand interaction with visuo-haptic feedback. The proposed system enables an operator to telemanipulate a remote robot immersively using the visual rendering of the VR environment, while interacting with a real robot at the operator site. The ETH feedback rendering and the telemanipulation at the remote site are both implemented using the 7 degrees-of-freedom (DoF) Franka Emika robot under Cartesian-impedance control. The cartesian goal poses of each robot are decided according to the operator's interaction intention, estimated through the hand gesture and gaze direction tracking, and the rendered remote VR environment. The paper successfully demonstrates an ETH interface that provides intuitive and immersive interaction in immersive bilateral telemanipulation scenarios.
Submission Number: 18
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