Using Wearable Haptics for Thermal Discrimination in Virtual Reality Scenarios

Towards a more realistic feeling of interacting with virtual and remote objects, we developed a wearable cutaneous device for the proximal finger phalanx able to provide skin deformations and thermal cues on the user skin. A servomotor is used to move a belt applying a pressure on the user finger, while a Peltier cell renders thermal cues. In the proposed hands-on demonstration, a user wears such haptic ring and a VR headset, and interacts with a virtual environment. In the virtual scenario, objects with different temperatures are displayed and the user is asked to find the coldest or the hottest. During the interaction, the movements of the user hand are tracked by a Leap Motion sensor, while the haptic ring renders interaction forces and thermal cues, providing the user with the sensation of touching objects in the scene at different temperatures.