Design and Implementation of the FingerTac as a Product-Service System for Mobile Haptic Mixed Reality Applications (Entwurf und Implementierung des FingerTacs in ein Produkt-Service-System für haptische Mixed-Reality-Anwendungen)

Abstract

Despite the massive interest in haptic feedback in mixed reality, the wide range of applications, and the prosperous outlook for the mixed reality market, few haptic technologies are commercially available. The FingerTac is a haptic feedback thimble device developed at German Aerospace Center (DLR). It enables simultaneous interaction with virtual and real elements while offering an immersive experience. The FingerTac is to be integrated with other research results from the CeTI research cluster into a technology demonstrator, especially with the CeTI Glove smart glove. Therefore, an ideation workshop with scientists from CeTI was performed to identify opportunities. The results were mapped to five areas of opportunity with associated technology systems. Evaluation based on the expected outcome of the technology demonstrator led to the area of opportunity "Smart Lab". Research on the laboratory environment was performed and expert interviews were conducted to identify opportunities and challenges for the implementation of a smart glove device. Based on the opportunities, three system applications were defined for the proposed technology system. The development task for the smart glove device was derived from the challenges imposed by the environment. The concepts for the smart glove device were evaluated based on performance, user, and customer criteria. Starting from defined requirements, actuators were selected for iterative prototyping to adapt the FingerTac to the application and the smart glove concept, and simplify it. Despite the simplifications, a comparative study shows that the design performs similarly to the original FingerTac. The adapted FingerTac is integrated into the design of a smart glove device concept for the laboratory environment, which is modeled in CAD and rendered for display. For further evaluation, the FingerTac is integrated with a current version of the CeTI glove in a smart glove prototype. The system application is revisited and prepared for demonstration at trade fairs.