Real-time haptic rendering and haptic telepresence robotic system for the visually impaired

This paper presents a robotic system that provides telepresence to the visually impaired by combining real-time haptic rendering with multi-modal interaction. A virtual-proxy based haptic rendering process using a RGB-D sensor is developed and integrated into a unified framework for control and feedback for the telepresence robot. We discuss the challenging problem of presenting environmental perception to a user with visual impairments and our solution for multi-modal interaction. We also explain the experimental design and protocols, and results with human subjects with and without visual impairments. Discussion on the performance of our system and our future goals are presented toward the end.