Stiffness Perception in a Virtual Environment

Abstract: This report is aimed at setting up a virtual environment to study and analyze the force feedback during varying dynamic conditions of the virtual environment with the help of a Haptic Device ( Omega.7 ). Adequate Haptic feedback with the virtual object is also implemented. The objective of the project is to perform experiments to study how the subject tries to elude a visioproprioceptive mismatch during robotically arbitrated manipulations in virtual reality when he/she instigates an action, and then to assess the results. The study is also aimed at cognitively characterizing interaction with a virtual object, focusing particularly on stiffness. This might be of relevance for the rehabilitation field, as Virtual Reality and Haptic feedback allows fully controlled interactions and monitoring of subjects’ performances and also to specifically scrutinize how movement and force feedback influence our perception of the virtual environment. In order to set up the virtual environment, CHAI 3D is used, which is an open source set of C++ libraries for computer haptics, visualization and interactive real-time simulation [2].