Mobile Haptic Interface for Large Immersive Virtual Environments: PoMHI v0.5

We present initial results of research toward a novel Mobile Haptic Interface (MHI) that provides an unlimited haptic workspace in large immersive virtual environments. When a user explores a large virtual envi- ronment, the MHI can sense the configuration of the user , move itself to an appropriate configuration, and provi de force feedback for haptic display, thereby enabling a v ir- tually limitless workspace. Our MHI (PoMHI v0.5) is featured with omni-directional mobility, a collision-fr ee motion planning algorithm, and force feedback for general environment models. We also provide experimental re- sults that show the fidelity of our mobile haptic inter face.