PseudoBend: Producing Haptic Illusions of Stretching, Bending, and Twisting Using Grain Vibrations

We present a technique for haptic feedback that creates the illusion that a rigid device is being stretched, bent, or twisted. The method uses a single 6-DOF force sensor and a vibrotactile actuator to render grain vibrations to simulate the vibrations produced during object deformation based on the changes in force or torque exerted on a device. Because this method does not require any moving parts aside from the vibrotactile actuator, devices designed using this method can be small and lightweight. Psychophysical studies conducted using a prototype that implements this method confirmed that the method could be used to successfully create the illusion of deformation and could also change users’ perception of stiffness by changing the virtual stiffness parameters.