Optimal Secondary Controls Using a

Configurable Haptic Interface

William DurfeeDepartment of Mechanical

EngineeringUniversity of Minnesota

Supported byCenter for Transportation Studies

Contributing playersSenthil S., Rahul Akolkar

The problem Automobile

dashboards getting crowded

Drivers do more while driving

Distractions on the rise

The solution

Replace many controls with single control

Control takes on visual, haptic, auditory characteristics tailored to task

Properties change with task All without confusing the driver

Project tasks Design, fabricate, test configurable

panel control that uses visual, aural, haptic feedback to aid user in task performance

Determine how information bandwidth depends on haptic, aural properties

Conduct human factors test in a driving simulator

Is it the iDrive?

Virtual product prototyping

Apply virtual reality technology to create product prototypes Move beyond CAD-based visual rendering

See Hear Touch

? ?

Panel controls: simplified paradigm for research

•Fixed in space, single d-o-f, low-force, simple graphics•Sufficiently complex to enable exploration of research questions

Apparatus

visual display

Ethernet

SGI

PC

servoamp

motion, force, torque motor

haptic display

speaker

aural display

green screen

camera

to SGI

Perceptual experiments

Impact of display “quality” on Perceived level of realism Ability of user to perform specified design

tasks Understand sensory interaction in

multi-model virtual environments Which sense dominates Can you trick the sensory system…to

your advantage?

Compare virtual to real materials Sight/sound/touch With or without sensory conflict

Probing experiments

subject

TV

monitor

motorgreen screen

probereference materials

speakers

camera

to SGI

test material

What we learned

Virtual environment does well when emulating soft materials

Haptic cues are important for matching

Adding visual or sound cues to haptics improves perceived quality of match

Subjects tended not to use sound cues for matching

Human motor performance with visual/haptic interface What should haptic knob feel like for a

selection task? Vary target haptics, background haptics Best haptics for rapid selection: target

damping With good haptics, can perform secondary

tasks rapidly leaving more time for primary navigation task

Technology development tasks

Networked architecture for three control computers (visual/haptic/aural)

New control technology (visual/haptic/aural)

Technology Haptics

Matlab xPC Target for real-time control Aural

Synthetic sound Summation of decaying sinusoids DirectSound for synchronized, real-time

sound production Visual

Windows based tools for visual effects NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600

System Architecture

VISUAL PC

HAPTIC PC

AURAL PC

SERVO-AMP

MOTOR

Visual C++ [Graphics scene, Chromakey, UDP communication]

HUMAN

TV

VIDEO CARD

SPEAKERS

MATLAB

KNOB

UDP/IPUDP/IP

xPC TARGET

CAMERA

network

DirectShow

*DirectShow System Overview: www.microsoft.com

Virtual Scene + Chromakeyed User hand

Graphic knob rotates using data via UDP from haptics controller

Pro/E Open Inventor Direct3D X

Capture video for chromakey: DirectShow tools

STISIM Driving Simulator