Haptic rendering of a needle insertion by enhancing the real force response of a base object

In this paper, we describe the haptic rendering method of an insertion task with a needle. We employed a new haptic rendering method in which the virtual force generated from a haptic device is superimposed on the force response of a base object. A rubber sheet was used as the base object. An actuator stretched the rubber sheet in order to change the elasticity of the sheet and the transition displacement of the force response. The experimental results showed that the proposed haptic augmentation can display the force response during the needle insertion task into the target rubber sheet.