HAPTIC DEVICES AND ILLUSIONS FOR AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY APPLICATIONS

Abstract

The last decade has seen exponential growth in the need for a deeper dive into virtual and augmented environments. This can be achieved only through more sophisticated tactile illusions, provided by haptic devices. Firstly, in this work, the literature review on haptic devices is provided (Chapter 1), describing 85 publications in the period from 2010 to 2020. The review describes the technology based on the concept of "wearability level", providing its two-level classification. For the systems in each of these categories, descriptions, and tables are provided that analyze their structure, including device mass and employed actuators, their applications, and other characteristics such as type of haptic feedback and tactile illusions. In the second part of this work (Chapter 2), a new haptic device is proposed. Its design is based on the analysis of the review made in the first part. Therefore, this device aims to do a step further and expand the abilities to precede haptic technologies. Human studies were conducted to evaluate the performance of the new haptic device in different use cases. It reflects the best features of the reviewed systems, trying to be in the direction of future developments in this field.