Directional Force Feedback: Mechanical Force Concentration for Immersive Experience in Virtual Reality
Department of Interior Architecture Design, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Korea
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Appl. Sci. 2019, 9(18), 3692; https://doi.org/10.3390/app9183692
Received: 9 August 2019
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Revised: 28 August 2019
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Accepted: 2 September 2019
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Published: 5 September 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Applied Industrial Technologies)
In recent years, consumer-level virtual-reality (VR) devices and content have become widely available. Notably, establishing a sense of presence is a key objective of VR and an immersive interface with haptic feedback for VR applications has long been in development. Despite the state-of-the-art force feedback research being conducted, a study on directional feedback, based on force concentration, has not yet been reported. Therefore, we developed directional force feedback (DFF), a device that generates directional sensations for virtual-reality (VR) applications via mechanical force concentrations. DFF uses the rotation of motors to concentrate force and deliver directional sensations to the user. To achieve this, we developed a novel method of force concentration for directional sensation; by considering both rotational rebound and gravity, the optimum rotational motor speeds and rotation angles were identified. Additionally, we validated the impact of DFF in a virtual environment, showing that the users’ presence and immersion within VR were higher with DFF than without. The result of the user studies demonstrated that the device significantly improves immersivity of virtual applications.
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Keywords:
user interface; human-computer interaction; virtual reality; force feedback; force concentration
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Ban, S.; Hyun, K.H. Directional Force Feedback: Mechanical Force Concentration for Immersive Experience in Virtual Reality. Appl. Sci. 2019, 9, 3692. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9183692
AMA Style
Ban S, Hyun KH. Directional Force Feedback: Mechanical Force Concentration for Immersive Experience in Virtual Reality. Applied Sciences. 2019; 9(18):3692. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9183692
Chicago/Turabian StyleBan, Seonghoon, and Kyung H. Hyun. 2019. "Directional Force Feedback: Mechanical Force Concentration for Immersive Experience in Virtual Reality" Applied Sciences 9, no. 18: 3692. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9183692
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