Recognition of Surrounding Environmental Based on Hand-Haptic Force

This paper describes a user-friendly system to recognize the surrounding obstacles around the elderly using the hand-haptic force feedback, to help the elderly walk safely. The user is able to attain the surrounding recognition by perceiving repulsive force generated in feedback while manipulating the joystick. To build up the system, a virtual potential fields corresponding to the distance and direction to the obstacle is employed. Through the experimental results, it is found that the practice time that the user learns basic operation of the system is sufficiently short. Furthermore, the user feels the sense of security while recognizing the surrounding information through the hand-haptic force