Encountered-Type Tabletop Haptic Display for Objects On-Demand in Virtual Environments

This paper presents the design and capabilities of a custom-built Encountered-Type Haptic Display. With an X-Y-Z-Yaw plotter mechanism below the tabletop and four permanent magnets in the end-effector, the device can manipulate multiple objects in three dimensions on top of the table. Four hall effect sensors in the end-effector are used to compensate the friction of the display and increase the positioning accuracy of objects to 0.5 mm. With an end-effector speed of 66.6 cm/s, objects can be placed in a workspace of 47.2×26 cm. The device is built for human-computer interaction scenarios in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to provide haptic feedback on-demand. Due to the design, arbitrary object shapes and materials can be presented to the user within the table's workspace. The usability and performance of the table are evaluated with a user study.