Haptic sensation has two complex components; skin (cutaneous) sensing which is mediated by a variety of sensing organs that respond to pressure, vibration, displacement and temperature and kinaesthetic/proprioceptive sensing (muscles and joints) which responds to motions and forces exerted by the interaction of the body with the external environment. Although haptic interaction has been identified as being crucial for many applications, achieving realism in haptic feedback has not been possible due to physical, understanding and modelling problems. This paper explores the sensation of touch from a physiological and technological perspective and shows how this can be combined with an integrated touch/force reflecting system to produce a 'realistic' haptic rendering.

Applications in telepresence, virtual reality and virtual environments have highlighted the need for an advanced realistic user interface to remote and virtual entities. Vision and audition have been well developed leaving touch as a key sensory parameter which is presently under-utilised. In this paper a detailed study of the present knowledge of the human sensory nervous system relating to the 'sense of touch and feeling' is undertaken. Using this knowledge of the operation of tactile nerves a multi-modal cutaneous tactile feedback glove has been designed and tested. The construction of this system which feeds back data on texture/slip motion, edges/ridges and surface contours, contact force and thermal parameters is detailed with the test results and system assessment.

Robots have most successfully been applied in repetitive operations, but often when the task involves complex variable operations in unstructured environments teleoperation is preferred. As the complexity of these human supervisory tasks has increased the trend has been towards greater sensory feedback and more intuitive input control. This paper reports on the relative effectiveness of and need for sensory feedback systems for operator control in telepresence applications. In particular, studies were made of the performance of manipulation and navigation planning operations on a twin armed mobile robot using a variety of visual and audio cues and input systems. The performance was measured by experimentation with a range of subjects at a number of difficulty levels to test the effectiveness of the telepresence controller in a series of technical scenarios.

Haptic cues are the forms of information that can be acquired by the human sensory system through touching or handling an object. Some cues require active exploration while others are passively received. A basic taxonomy of haptic cues and the role that each cue plays in grasping and manipulation is illustrated in this paper. An initial analysis considers all forms of sensing and feedback (visual, audio, smell and taste) but attention is focused on global tactile requirements (kinaesthetic) and the local tactile (cutaneous) sensory cues. A multi-modal feedback system is shown which can stimulate a range of tactile nerves (mid/mid and low frequency plus thermal), together with the test results. Particular attention is applied to the use of mid-high frequency stimulation, where interesting sensations have been recorded which have a direct bearing on the ability of a user to use this form of system for prolonged periods.

Robots are often required to function in environments which would be extremely dangerous or expensive when using direct human labour, however, computer control and intelligence are not sufficiently developed to permit the robots to perform these advanced technical tasks under their own initiative, and there is always a human operative in the loop. Ideally the operator would wish to input body motions (from legs, arm, hand and head) which the robot would duplicate, and receive from the remote sensors full visual, audio and tactile feedback of a quality and form comparable with that normally produced by the eyes, ears and skin. This work considers the development of input, control and feedback (visual, audio and tactile) systems (man-machine interface) for a twin armed mobile robot to be used in tele-presence applications. This multi-purpose human-machine interface provides the user with an enhanced degree of true control of and 'feel' for the task.>

Robots are often required to function in areas that are too dangerous or expensive for direct human labour. Unfortunately the unstructured nature of many of these environments and complexity of the task make autonomous operation impossible and tele-operation is essential. A variety of tele-operated devices are available to assist the operator, but in general control of the actions is not truly intuitive. Ideally the operator would wish to input body motions (from legs, arm, hand and head) which the robot would duplicate, and receive from the remote sensors, feedback of a quality and form comparable with that normally sensed. This work considers the development and testing of enhanced input, control and feedback (visual audio and tactile) systems for a twin armed mobile robot to be used in tele-presence applications. In particular the authors focus on the performance of the operator in controlled motion and manipulation tasks. These tests involve assessment of the usefulness of tactile, video and audio feedback parameters including: wide/narrow angle field of view, colour/monochrome, stereo/mono vision and audio. The performance is assessed in terms of the ease of training, time to perform simple functions and accuracy of task completion.>