On the Possibility of Two-Dimensional Slip Rendering Using Two Cross Placed Belts

Haptic feedback plays a key role in robot teleoperation and enables operators to feel what remote robots touch. To enhance the telepresence, this paper proposes a novel haptic feedback device for slip rendering, which is the primary cause of failure in robotic grasping. The slip feedback is rendered by two cross placed belts driven by individual motors. The upper belt is in direct contact with the operator’s skin to induce a stretch. It is thin enough to allow the operator to also perceive the lower belt, which has bumps on its surface to induce a pressing stimulation. When the belts are actuated, the operator can distinguish their motions and estimate both the direction and speed of a lateral slip rendered from their resultant motion. The proposed device can provide a continuous slip rendering without motion limits. It is also suited for applications in virtual reality. User studies have been conducted to evaluate its effectiveness, showing that the users’ success rate of recognizing eight slip directions and four slip speeds reaches 84.6% and 72.0%, respectively. Furthermore, we demonstrate that its usage in teleoperation helps reduce the force applied by a teleoperated robotic gripper in object grasping.