Collision avoidance and its experimental investigation for a side-faced-type multi-fingered haptic interface

To display three-directional forces at a user´s multiple fingertips and to allow the user to grasp a small virtual object, we previously developed a side-faced-type multi-fingered haptic interface. This haptic interface consists of a five-fingered haptic hand and an arm, and the haptic interface is located on the side of the user´s body. Therefore, there is a risk that the haptic hand and the user´s hand will collide while the user manipulates the haptic interface. In this paper, we realized a control system for collision avoidance for a side-faced-type multi-fingered haptic interface, and present experimental results demonstrating its validity.