Najdovski, Zoran, Pedrammehr, Siamak, Chalak Qazani, Mohamad Reza, Abdi, Hamid, and Asadi, Houshyar (2025) Advancing haptic realism: modelling grasp contact vibrations for enhanced virtual environment interaction. Engineering Research Express, 7 (1). 015534.

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Abstract

In haptic technology, achieving realistic tactile feedback is crucial for enhancing a user's experience in virtual environments. Previous studies lack effective methods for transmitting high-frequency vibrations crucial for realistic tactile feedback in haptic interfaces, highlighting the need for our research to address this gap. This paper explores the application of a tactile gripping interface to transmit the high-frequency vibrations produced when contacting a hard object’s surface. These short vibrations improve the tactile sensation of hard virtual surfaces when overlaid on traditional position-based force feedback within a haptic environment. The enhanced realism of virtual objects is achieved by effectively estimating the vibration composition from user-induced parameters. This work presents a prototype grasping interface and empirically demonstrates this device’s utility. We examine empirical grasp contact data, recorded and interpreted, to recognise the relationship between dynamic user-controlled parameters and the resulting vibration transients. This relationship effectively incorporates these changing dynamics to model the grasp impact and estimate the essential system parameters to understand the influence of the user’s grasp force. Through our multi-point grasping interface design, this work demonstrates a mathematical relationship between the user’s grasp force and the high-frequency vibrations from contact with hard surfaces. The study found that the proposed haptic interface achieved an RMSE of 0.05, demonstrating a high level of accuracy. This low RMSE value signifies that the predicted vibrations closely matched the actual measured vibrations, validating the system’s capability to generate precise high-frequency transients. Such accuracy is critical for practical applications, including realistic tactile feedback in virtual environments, where precise modelling enhances user experience and interaction reliability. This work provides a foundational model for developing advanced haptic technologies, enabling more immersive virtual environments and precise control in teleoperation and training simulations.

Item ID:	86695
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2631-8695
Copyright Information:	Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Date Deposited:	28 Aug 2025 01:31
FoR Codes:	40 ENGINEERING > 4007 Control engineering, mechatronics and robotics > 400701 Assistive robots and technology @ 60% 46 INFORMATION AND COMPUTING SCIENCES > 4608 Human-centred computing > 460806 Human-computer interaction @ 15% 40 ENGINEERING > 4006 Communications engineering > 400604 Network engineering @ 25%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280110 Expanding knowledge in engineering @ 35% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280115 Expanding knowledge in the information and computing sciences @ 65%
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