Sensory illusions using low-cost haptic devices to enhance spatial understanding for engineering design

This project will research the use of strategically-positioned, easy to wear, vibrating devices for improving engineers' understanding of 3D spaces in virtual environments. The system will use low-cost technologies and support day-to-day engineering design work.

Currently, the majority of engineering design is conducted on desktop systems. These do not allow engineers to experience the 3D spaces they are designing, thus limiting design success in applications with human users, such as component access routes for assembly and reach investigations for a manufacturing line. Engineering for users currently relies mainly on physical prototypes, which are expensive to produce and may not reflect current design intent due the time taken to build them. Digital human modelling, in which CAD representations of humans are used for ergonomics investigations, offer some benefits but are not suitable for complex motions and do not provide subjective responses. Design solutions can be viewed and experienced in virtual reality such as CAVEs, but depth perception in virtual environments can be inaccurate, leading to rejection of this technology by engineers, or unsound decision-making. Moreover, CAVEs are expensive and gaining access to them can be difficult for engineers conducting everyday design and analysis work.

This project will determine whether a small number of worn haptic (sense of touch) devices can improve spatial awareness in virtual environments. When viewing a 3D environment, a collision between the engineer's body and the virtual object will be indicated by vibrations on one of these devices. The devices may not be located exactly at the point of contact, for example, the engineer's elbow may contact the limits of the space they are designing, but the haptic cue may be experienced on the forearm. This approach will allow for a smaller number of devices, which will make the system more wearable than current haptic suits and more acceptable to engineers. No previous research has addressed such a challenge. The project outcome will be improvements in engineers' understanding of 3D spaces, which will increase the robustness with which decisions are made about designs during the early phases, which could reduce engineering development time and the use of expensive physical prototypes.

The project will adapt low-cost off-the-shelf technologies to retain focus on affordable solutions which are accessible to engineers. To avoid the inconvenience of marker-based body tracking suits, a markerless system will capture the user's movements and display their body within the virtual environment. Laboratory research will first determine the perceptual advantages afforded by the system by comparing spatial understanding with multi-sensory feedback to a vision-only condition. Furthermore, evaluation will be made of sensory illusions, in which the point of vibrotactile sensation differs to the point of contact between the user's body and the virtual object as seen in a stereoscopic display. Following on from this laboratory study, the system will be tested in design and manufacturing use cases by engineers. This will determine the benefits of multi-modal stimulation on spatial awareness, but will also evaluate the usability and acceptance of the system in an engineering environment.

This research will benefit engineers who design products and workplaces for human users. The research results will inform a new technique for experiencing designs during the CAD phase, before physical prototypes are available. In this way they will be able to make higher-validity decisions about their designs, which will reduce the costs associated with physical prototypes. Using virtual testing will allow them to evaluate a larger number of iterations in a shorter space of time than physical parts testing, thus resulting in faster and better-informed design solutions. Engineers are likely to achieve satisfactory solutions in a shorter space of time, thus reducing time to market and further improving their organisation's competitiveness. Furthermore, an emphasis of this project is on the use of low-cost technologies. Engineering companies will benefit by avoiding the costs associated with high-end visualisation technologies such as CAVEs. The low-cost technologies will increase their ubiquity, rather than only providing VR systems in dedicated laboratories with restricted access and complex data set up processes. These technologies will also provide immersive design capabilities for engineers who cannot currently access a CAVE, for example SMEs or engineers in developing countries.
Engineers will be able to optimise the suitability of their designs for human users as part of a proactive approach, thus reducing the ergonomics injuries associated with poorly designed workstations, for example on manufacturing lines. Thus, human users of the engineering solutions will also benefit from the work.
The impact will be expected most immediately through adoption of the research findings into the development of virtual reality technology systems. This will be supported through the involvement of academic, industrial and technology developer partners, including Jaguar Land Rover, Holovis, ENSAM, Virginia Tech, Bauhaus-Universitat Weimar, and the Manufacturing Technology Centre, and dissemination activities at their sites.