Anisotropic virtual coupling with energy-based deflection for palpating inhomogeneous compliant objects

Virtual coupling, a spring-damper system between the haptic probe and its virtual representation, the proxy, is one of the most common approaches for haptic rendering. We have extended the virtual coupling by updating the spring stiffness, sometimes used to simulate compliance of a material, depending on the direction between the proxy and the probe. This anisotropic variation of the stiffness is used in exploring inhomogeneities beneath the surface allowing detection of rigid structures even when they are obscured by another structure beneath the surface. In addition, we also compensate for the energy variation of the spring to maintain passivity and increase realism. User studies were performed to survey the success rate in the detection of obscured rigid bodies beneath the surface with the modified virtual coupling algorithm and the improvement of shape perception for sub-surface objects with the additional energy compensation term providing gradient information. We also discuss potential benefits of the proposed methods as basic extensions to well-known haptic rendering algorithms which are both simpler and yield improved performance over traditional deformation simulation techniques.