Mechanical Aspects of Locomotion Interfaces


Locomotion Display

Locomotion display is the presentation of mechanical stimuli to simulate the various aspects of natural locomotion. Our research focuses on the use of the Sarcos Treadport's active mechanical tether to achieve a variety of locomotion aspects.

Atmospheric Display

It has been argued that a totality of sensory effects, mutually reinforcing, is required for immersion, otherwise a missing sense will veto the immersive experience. A significant aspect missing from virtual environments is atmospheric display, particularly wind and smell. The Treadport Active Wind Tunnel (TPAWT pronounced teapot) project is the first to attempt to build a three-dimensional wind tunnel within the Treadport confines, in order to generate controlled wind from any direction on the user.

Sound Display

Accurate three-dimensional sound simulation is also generally missing from virtual environments. Using a beam tracing method, early-phase reverberations can be calculated for each ear that can reveal metric information such as the size of a room.

Publications

  1. Hollerbach, J.M., ``Locomotion interfaces and rendering,'' in: Haptic Rendering: Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications, Ming Lin and Miguel Otaduy, eds., A.K. Peters, 2007, in press.

  2. Hollerbach, J.M., "Locomotion interfaces," in: Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications, K.M. Stanney, ed., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2002, pp. 239-254.

  3. Hollerbach, J.M., Xu, Y., Christensen, R., and Jacobsen, S.C., `` Design specifications for the second generation Sarcos Treadport locomotion interface,'' Haptics Symposium, Proc. ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division, DSC-Vol. 69-2, Orlando, Nov. 5-10, 2000, pp. 1293-1298.