PERCEPTION ROBOTICS: PERCRO LABORATORY AT EUROHAPTICS 2016, LONDON

International conference EUROHAPTICS 2016, to be held in London on July 4 - 7, will provide the perception robotics PERCRO Laboratory of TeCIP Institute for Communication, Information and Perception Technologies with the opportunity to present the demonstration study on their newly developed haptic devices "Wearable Fingertip Devices for Rendering Cutaneous Force Feedback in Virtual Manipulation" .

The fingertip haptic devices, developed within the European research project WEARHAP - WEARable HAPtics for Humans and Robots – by the group working on Human-Robot Interaction coordinated by professor Antonio Frisoli, as engineer Daniele Leonardis will explain at Imperial College London – allow the user to feel the sense of touch during manipulation of virtual objects or in remote manipulation performed through tele-operated robots. These devices provide cutaneous haptic feedback by rendering three dimensional

contact forces at the fingerpad, thus conveying sensory information that is fundamental during manipulation. The main novelty with respect to other haptic devices is the miniaturization and improved wearability (mass of a single device is about 15 grams); these features allow a wider and more immersive workspace, and multi-finger operation. Immediate applications are in virtual reality, in particular for training and neuro-rehabilitation scenarios where haptic feedback is a crucial factor, and in virtual gaming. Robotic surgery constitutes another important application field, whereas other classic force feedback methods cannot be used due to safety reasons.