This article presents conceptual as well as experimental work toward the display of holistic haptic sensations in telepresence and virtual environment applications. (In this context holistic is understood in the sense of “not neglecting an essential component.”) In contrast to most existing developments, the presented haptic humansystem interface is a combination of dedicated subsystems for both kinesthetic and tactile display. With respect to the mechanical coupling of both subsystems, we propose two basic approaches. One is based on a parallel kinematic system setup and forms the conceptual basis of a multifingered experimental feedback device generating vibrotactile, thermal, and wrist/finger kinesthetic stimuli. Another is to demonstrate the potential to reduce the design complexity of tactile display subsystems in haptic human-system interfaces with a serial kinematic structure. For verification purposes, a tactile actuator array providing spatially distributed tactile shape display on a single fingertip has been combined with a single-fingered kinesthetic display. Each of the investigated combined haptic systems features significant functional advances compared to existing developments. The usability of our systems has been demonstrated in haptic exploration and object identification experiments in virtual environments.

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In this paper we present a distributed PC-based multimodal (haptic, visual and acoustic) telepresence and virtual presence system. Two desktop kinesthetic devices (DeKiFeD3 and DeKiTop3) with 3 degrees-of-freedom have been developed for multi-modal telepresence. Feedback to the human modalities of the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile and temperature senses is generated using appropriate actuator hardware. We present several applications in virtual presence and teleoperation in physical remote environments.

In specific fields, medical education at many universities is rather theoretical and the amount of practical training is limited. A significant improvement can be achieved using virtual reality training stations with lifelike visual, acoustic, tactile, and kinesthetic feedback. Particularly, when simulating procedures that require direct contact with the patient body, a realistic haptic simulation addressing tactile and kinesthetic senses can be essential for the acceptance of virtual simulation stations. A purely passive phantom may provide realistic haptic feedback, but its properties cannot be changed over time.This paper presents the haptic display of the Munich Knee Joint Simulator, which was developed to improve training and education of physical knee joint examinations. The haptic interface comprises a combination of passive phantom segments providing realistic tactile sensations, and strong actuators generating highly dynamic kinesthetic force feedback. A 3 degree of freedom (DOF) manipulator was developed in this study to drive the thigh prosthesis and one 6 DOF industrial robot was used to actuate the shank prosthesis. Both manipulators are driven by hybrid admittance-impedance controllers capable of simulating the complex dynamics of the thigh and the shank. Both actuators are equipped with a 6 DOF force torque sensor and they are virtually coupled by an analytical knee joint model. The proposed setup is capable of simulating a mechanical stiffness as high as 80 kN/m in the translatory DOF and simultaneously allows free motion in the rotatory DOF. Experimental tests of the simulator with orthopedic physicians proved the usability of the proposed concept.

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