Efficient Recording and Playback of Haptic Interaction

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Eckehard Steinbach
• Subject Area: Human Factors, Ergonomics, Human-Machine Systems
• Term: from 2010 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 171279129

Audio-visual communication has shaped the way humans Interact and communicate with or through technical systems during the last decade. During the next decade, haptic communication and haptic computing have the potential to further augment human-to-human and human-to-machine interaction and communication. The goal of this proposal Is to investigate methods for the efficient recording and playback of haptic signals captured during real-world or virtual multimodal telepresence and telemanipulation sessions. Applications for the recording and playback of haptic interaction sessions can be found in training, documentation and performance analysis scenarios. We will study haptic communication both from a theoretical point of view but also experimentally by designing, implementing and evaluating haptic interaction testbeds. More specifically, we will develop a mathematical model of human haptic perception and exploit this model for the efficient lossy compression of haptic data streams. We are planning to integrate the concept of event-based haptics as a promising strategy for improving the haptic immersion when touching rigid objects. The performance of the offline compression schemes for haptic signals will be evaluated both objectively and subjectively. Both principal investigators express a very strong interest in advancing the field of haptic communication and computing. They possess complementary skills and can document more than five years of successful collaboration and mobility between the two institutions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants